The John Poelstra Show

A previous client asks for help navigating their own burn out while dealing with a demanding boss.

Here’s my advice on managing stress, dealing with demanding bosses, and finding sustainable ways to recharge. I look at the importance of questioning assumptions, setting boundaries, and experimenting with new approaches to reclaim control over one’s work-life balance.

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All songs licensed under Creative Commons

## Transcript

*This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.*

The context of today’s topic is brought to us by a former client. By the way, I love hearing from former clients. It never happens too much, ever. So if you are one of those former clients, coachees, whatever you want to call yourself, and you’re kind of Kind of itching to send me an update or ask me a question or whatever. There’s no way that you can impose or inconvenience me if that’s your story.

It’s impossible. So feel free to reach out. If you have my email address, email me. If you don’t have my email address, message me on LinkedIn. I prefer email to LinkedIn, but whatever you got, use it.

I would love to hear from you. I love hearing from people because they are often in situations that I also find myself in, which is I think that I have 2 bad choices.

And what I continue to see over and over and over and over again, the people that I coach and being coached myself, is when I think there’s only 2 bad choices, I usually have like a 3rd and a 4th choice. And so that’s kind of what we’re playing with here today. So this person reached out to share some great news in a text message, and we went back and forth a little bit and I think they had mentioned my podcast or something. And as I often do with people, I said, hey, do you have anything that would be useful to talk about on my podcast? Is there a question you would like me to answer?

And I didn’t hear from them for a while. And I thought, oh, I guess they don’t have any questions. Okay. And then I got this wonderful email. And so we went back and forth on email in a little more detail.

And I’m going to read some of their questions here. And then give my thoughts on them.

So the context for this person is it’s the holidays. They’re expecting to get a break after a brutal year. They’re looking forward to a number of days off in a row where they can just recharge, relax, regroup, whatever the case might be. And instead of that happening, they had a number of unforeseen interruptions. They had someone that resigned from their position, and so they needed to get on the phone with their boss to sort that out, and any number of other things that popped up that they felt compelled to respond to.

Background or context here too is this person’s boss is, sounds like very high energy, works at a very high level, works a number of hours, doesn’t take very much time off. And there is either an implicit or explicit expectation that this person work at the same level. So he has a feeling that he has to be as available and as on and as working as hard as his boss. And he’s starting to feel like maybe that’s not sustainable. So he sent me roughly some questions and then I went back to him and said, okay, Can you distill this down into exactly what your questions are?

And if you had any conversations, coaching conversations with me, you know that I often will say, okay, so you’ve shared a lot of things here. What is the question? And so they wrote me back with 5 specific questions that I will answer to the best of my ability here. Now, before I answer the questions, a very important disclaimer. I coach people in these environments a lot.

I have been in similar, but maybe not to the same degree, high-intensity environments as this. I was earlier in my career, and I have consciously opted out of these environments and no longer work in them by my own choice.

And I feel like that’s important to say so that if you hear my answers here as lacking compassion or real-world possibility, I believe it is. And I respect the fact that everyone’s circumstances are different and we each make our own choices. And prioritize things differently. So the first question here is, with modern technology meaning we are contactable far outside the 8 to 5 every day, including weekends and vacations, combined with an instant lifestyle that society has developed into, how on earth can we manage this constant pressure?

What comes to me here is the image of a balloon. Or a steel cylinder, some type of closed system that you could pump air into. And it seems to me that at a certain point, you can only put so much— well, we’ll just use the example of a balloon. You can only put so much air into a balloon before it pops. So in some ways, I read this question as How do we keep putting air in a balloon and the balloon not pop?

And my response to this is, well, there’s an assumption that we must continue to put air into the balloon.

And I would question that. I would also question the viability or the possibility of a balloon that can take an infinite amount of air without popping. I don’t think it’s possible. So the first thing around this question that I would be questioning is, do you have to manage the constant pressure? Can it even be managed? Or are you trying to manage something that can’t be managed?

Second question. When we feel stressed, we feel overwhelmed with the volume of issues that need to be addressed in addition to prioritizing What other effective techniques can be employed to deal with getting through it? Is there anything that can start to close the tap rather than just deal with an ever-increasing set of demanding tasks?

And I would say, again, sitting on the outside, there’s probably an opportunity to say no to certain things that maybe is not being exercised. Maybe. Because as the last part of this sentence says, is there anything that can start to close the tap rather than just deal with an ever-increasing set of demands and tasks? I’m potentially reading into this, but the assumption that you can just deal with an ever-increasing set of demands and tasks infinitely, I’ve never seen that work. There are constraints.

We all have limitations. Now, I’ve worked with people in investment banking that work hours and travel to a degree that I cannot fathom. That would not work for me. I just don’t get it. And yet they do it.

I think each person’s constraints and limits are different. Perhaps the first false step here is comparing our own constraints to someone else’s and using that as the measure. That might be one place to look. But when I think about this question, I just say, if we’re thinking of a balloon that can only hold so much air, yes, at a certain point, you have to stop putting air in the balloon. The third question here is dealing with a frenzied boss without being career limiting or simply leaving the role.

How can we manage up When someone expects the same level of activity from their team that they show themselves. I would come at this one a couple of different ways. One, I would come at it from the question of, how do we know this is true? Has this person sat down with their boss and said, hey, I noticed you never take any vacations. I noticed that you work 12 to 14 hours a day.

Do you have the same level of expectation from all the people that work for you? Now, I’ve also worked in situations and for people where having this conversation would be a major career-limiting move. I’m imagining— I was never in investment banking. I was in public accounting. Banking and those environments could be somewhat intense, but not to the same level of investment banking.

Yes. Could you sit down with your boss in an investment banking situation and say, these 80- to 100-hour work weeks, I noticed that you’re working that much. Do I have to? Yeah, that would probably be the end of that situation. I get that.

And I think it’s important to be asking yourself, what is this doing to me? How long can I sustain working 80 to 100 hours a week and it not adversely affect my life in a way that doesn’t work for me?

And I’m holding open the possibility, because I have worked with some of these people, that somehow it works for them. I don’t understand that. They have families, they do different things, and I don’t have any judgment towards them. And I’ve also known some people that have been in those spaces that have gotten out of them as well. But I would— the questions I would be asking are, is this getting me more or less of what I want in my life?

And if it’s getting you closer to the things that you want in your life, then, well, it seems like it’s working for you. In the context of the person that shared this question with me, I haven’t talked to them in depth about this yet, but my sense is that they have some type of a relationship with their boss that they could potentially have this conversation. And so that’s the first place I would start is how do we know it would be a career-limiting move to sit down and have a conversation with the boss and say something like, It’s been a brutal year. You know, we’ve all been burning the candle at both ends. I need, I need a full week off to hit the ground running again in 2025.

Is there any way we could design or come up with some agreements or a setup here so that I know that I don’t have to be looking at my phone or accessible or whatever from this date to this date. Could we create something or work out something in a way that would work that way? And could we also agree in advance what the exceptions to that would be? So that’s how I would come at question number 3 here. What is true?

What is absolutely true? Now, I have worked for people Where I also believe that behavior is a language. I’m stealing that from John Delony. He’s a therapist that has a radio show, and I find him kind of interesting and intriguing. Anyway, he has this whole thing of like behavior is a language.

So while I don’t believe that we can ever know 100% what someone is thinking or feeling, I think if we observe and experience enough of their behavior over time, that can become a language. I’m thinking of one very specific person that I worked for in my career that my experience of them was that they were very low in integrity. They told me a lot of things in confidence that seemed to be breaking confidences with other people. And so I determined that trusting this person with my career and other things was just not a wise idea. So would I have had this particular conversation with that person?

No, I would not have. And eventually I moved out of the role that I was in into a much better role. And some of those experiences were motivations and pointed me kind of in the direction of, you got to do something different. Because as this person shared separately in a different part of their email, it’s starting to have physical— Implications on their body. And I definitely went through some kind of mysterious— they were real illnesses and pain.

Like, I was feeling it in my body, but we could never quite figure out what was going on or where it was coming from. Number 4, can we turn the phone off? Oh, I’m sure there’s an answer to this one, but a fascinating discussion for a podcast. I feel like the answer is very different between companies, even within companies. It all depends on the people and what they are used to.

So while I agree that it varies between companies and within companies and teams, I do know that there are teams, and I’ve talked to people that are on them, where the teams sit down and they create team agreements, which is essentially, how are we going to be with each other on this team? How will we use Slack? How will we use text messages? What are the channels that we’re going to use? How are we going to use them?

When are we going to use them? When do they not apply? What are the exceptions?

Can you turn your phone off? Yes. I mean, as far as I know, every phone has an off button.

How high are the consequences if your phone is in that off position? And I’ve played with this with people. I had a current client actually that was visiting different sites and they left their phone in the car on purpose. I think it was like a 30 or 45-minute meeting that they were having. And the person that they were with was like, is this okay?

They were kind of in shock that this person was leaving their phone behind. And they just said, well, We’re going into this meeting. We need to be fully present. So yeah, my coach challenged me to do this. And so like, let’s just leave our phones here and see what happens.

He’s had nothing but positive things happen as a result of doing that. The other thing to play with, or the thing to play with on this one, as far as I’m concerned, is testing it out, experimenting. Maybe you want to start really small. Maybe you want to start with 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour. Same thing with Slack.

I’ve had, oh, I had a recent conversation with someone here. We were lovingly calling it the green dot, that stinking presence indicator. The last role that I was in, it was a contract role a couple, 2 or 3 years ago. The first thing I did was I disabled that thing. I just thought, I’m available.

I’m available when I’m available. And I’ll answer your question when I answer your question. And I had kind of an internal policy of, I will always reply within 24 hours. So some of this, I believe, is training. Did I respond on the spot all the time?

No, I didn’t. Did I respond pretty quickly? Yeah. But it wasn’t based on my presence indicator. So I think some of this, the last part of the question here, it all depends on the people and what they are used to.

Some of this is training people to get used to certain things, which is, oh yeah, I don’t respond all the time. I don’t respond in an instant, but I always respond. I always respond within a certain time. And again, if you have a team where you can figure some of this stuff out, oh my goodness. It erases so much ambiguity and so much expectations that you just instead have agreements.

This is how we’re going to do this. This is how this can work. This is how we’re agreeing to work together versus the cringy. And if you’ve ever listened to Steve Chandler’s Expectations Versus Agreements, you can never hear again in the same way when someone says, you know, well, I set expectations with my team. I expect this, I expect that.

There’s, there’s a completely better way, and it’s creating agreements. This again, this one, testing things out, finding out what’s true, coming up with agreements on— or, you know, in the case, in this person’s situation, it could be maybe a conversation with the boss that just says, hey, by the way, I’m turning my phone off. It won’t be on. If this happens, this happens, or this happens, You can call my wife. Sure.

Or I was gonna say call the home phone, but does anyone have a home phone anymore? I don’t know. And then the last question, are there any cheats that can help with recharging our batteries? Meditation can be useful, but I feel its beneficial impact doesn’t last long enough. In the context of the person that sent me this question, who is highly educated, Yeah.

With one of the, with, I think the highest degree you can get from a university. And my guess is most people listening to this, there aren’t any cheats. Like, you know them all already. You’ve, you’re, you’ve deployed them all. You’re managing a bazillion things.

You know how to prioritize, you know how to get stuff done. You know how to focus on what’s important. And when I hear cheats, I think of a game. I think of a video game or something, you know, are there cheat codes? You know, ultimately, if you want to get good at a game, you have to develop some new skills.

Yeah. I don’t think there are cheat codes for any of these things. I, if there’s, I just don’t. I think it comes down to carving out some space to really sit back and think what’s important to me. Where is all this headed?

If nothing changes for the next year, 3 years, 5 years, what will this have done to my body, to my soul, to my spirit, to my family, to the things that are important to me?

After this person sent me these 5 questions, I wrote back and said, you know, these are great questions and I will answer them, which is what I’m doing right now. And To really get somewhere and go somewhere with your situation, the best way for me to help you with that is to have a conversation. So we’re going to have a conversation and I have no idea what we’re going to discover. My hunch is what we’re going to discover is there are some untested assumptions about this situation that once tested, Might yield a better outcome. So that would be my encouragement to you if you find yourself in a similar situation is, and I would ask the same question to the person that sent me this question is, what haven’t you tried yet?

There’s always something that you haven’t tried yet. It’s usually living in the land of, oh, I haven’t tried that because, you know, that would be the nuclear option or that would result in catastrophic damage or career-limiting moves. And yet, if you step back and really, really, really, really, really be open and question, you might find— you will probably find that there’s more there. Even— I think it was in one of these questions.

Somewhere in this question, I can’t remember, or maybe it was in the other background they provided me, that was a statement that, quote, I have to have a job. To which I would say, is that true? Or said a different way, how long could you not have a job and things be okay?

This question always surprises me. I do my best to not make up money stories for people. And I remember asking this question to a prospective client several years ago.

I don’t think their partner liked the answer to their question or the fact that I asked it. And so I’d never heard from them. I think I heard from them once again, but we didn’t end up working together. But we were going around about different things and I said, well, So you’re trying to find a new job. How bad do you need money?

They’re like, well, not really at all. And I said, well, then why are you looking for a job? They’re like, well, you know, because my partner wants me to have a job, but I really like this other stuff I’m doing and they make a really good living, so I don’t really need to work.

And I have seen this play out a number of times and I have asked people, they’re like, yeah, but I have to have a job. Okay, totally fair. And without disclosing any number, you don’t have to tell me the numbers, but how many months could you, based on how much money you have in the bank or resources available to you, how many months could you go without working? It surprised me the number of times people have said in excess of a year. Or someone that’s maybe presented as kind of in a dire situation, like, well, I could probably go a year, year and a half, probably 2 years at the most.

But then, like, I wouldn’t have any money left. So that’s a very specific example. But my overall encouragement with all these things is, how do I know what’s true?

Is it true? Maybe you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, yeah, but my situation is totally different. My encouragement to you would be, there’s something about physical pen and paper, pencil and paper. Get out a piece of paper. And write down all of the things that you believe are true about your situation.

Unfiltered, no judgment. You’re probably going to write down some stuff that’s just— you think to yourself is kind of ridiculous. Just write it down anyway. So, I must work or we will have no money. I must be available or I will lose my job.

I must work as hard as my boss or I’ll get a bad review. I must, I must, I should, I have to, like write all those things down and then go back through the list very, very slowly and just say, how do I know this is 100% true? How do I know this is 100% true? And if, as you go through, you’re like, eh, I guess that one, I’m like, I’m about 75% sure that’s true. Next question to ask would be like, how could I get 5% more truth or clarity on whether this is true?

What would I have to do? What kind of experiment would I have to run? What kind of questions would I have to ask? What kind of agreements would I need to make with certain people? And see what that shows you.

And if you get to the end of this whole exercise and you’re like, yeah, my situation’s special, John. None of your questions worked. I don’t think any of this stuff really works. That’s perfect. That’s great.

Email me. We’ll have a conversation. Or if you went through this exercise and you’re like, yeah, I’m starting to see some glimmers of things that maybe I’m assuming are true that I’m not quite sure are true, but I’m still stuck. Email me. We’ll have a conversation.

Or if you did this exercise and you had an incredible breakthrough, email me as well. Yeah. Email is REDACTED. That’s johnpoelstra.com, and I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for listening to The John Poelstra Show. Notes, links, and all that other good stuff for this episode are at johnpoelstra.com. Send your questions, ideas, or a simple hello to REDACTED.

Want to stay up to date on new episodes and receive notifications of upcoming events? Register your email address at johnpoelstra.com/updates.

The post 133: How to Handle a Demanding Boss Without Burning Out appeared first on John Poelstra.

Sarah Johnson is a library science educator and social worker. She joins me to explain the evolving role of public libraries in modern society.

Sarah highlights how libraries have transformed from quiet book repositories into vibrant community hubs addressing diverse needs, from providing Wi-Fi and e-resources to offering social services like legal aid, health information, and even showers for unhoused individuals. Sarah explains that libraries are often the last free public spaces where people can gather without needing to spend money, making them essential yet increasingly complex environments.

Sarah also shares her unique career path from social work and massage therapy to academic librarianship, emphasizing how her passion for learning and community service shaped her journey. She discusses the concept of “library social work,” which integrates social work principles into library operations to address challenges like homelessness, mental health crises, and safety concerns in public libraries. Through examples like San Francisco’s pioneering library social worker program, she illustrates how libraries can partner with community organizations to better serve patrons while supporting overburdened staff.

All songs licensed under Creative Commons

## Transcript

*This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.*

**John:** Today I’m speaking with Sarah Johnson. Sarah came into my presence a few weeks ago. She was visiting my wife. They’ve been lifelong— not lifelong, but friends for a very long time. And she was in Portland for a conference for librarians, which I didn’t quite understand and was very interesting to me and caught my interest because libraries have an incredibly special place in my heart. Maybe we’ll get to that. So without any further ado, Sarah, thanks for joining me today.

**Sarah:** You’re super welcome. Thanks for asking me.

**John:** So what, what is a, what, what do librarians do at a conference and what, like, I’m so curious.

**Sarah:** Well, this particular conference was a very small one. So it was for library educators. So professors that teach in a graduate school of library and information science. Just for comparison versus the mega conference of all librarian conferences is the American Library Association, which I’ve been to and I’ve heard garners about 20,000 to 25,000 attendees. That number might be off a little bit. So that’s all kinds of librarians, right? Public, archivists, academic, where the one that I was at was just for professors of library— people who are getting their master’s in library science.

**John:** And why— I have a very— I don’t know. When I see the library, I see the person behind the reference desk, and they help me find things sometimes. What is there to—

**Sarah:** Why do you need a master’s?

**John:** Yeah. I was like, how can I ask this question without being offensive?

**Sarah:** But

**John:** what goes on behind that reference desk that most of us humans have no idea of?

**Sarah:** Right. So another clarification is, so the librarian that you see at your local public library may not have a master’s in library science. I mean, to you, they’re all librarians. Yeah. But if we can break that down, you have your librarians that have got their MLS or MLIS, which is Master of Library Science or Master of Library and Information Science. And now some schools call it other things, but we’ll just say MLS.

So, and those are the proper term for them would be librarians, right? So everyone else would be known as Library staff. So that could be someone that started out as a page, you know, shelving books, and now they’ve worked their way up to working at the reference desk, the circulation desk, they do programming, they may even be an administrator. But you are not required typically to have a degree in library science to work at a public library.

Generally, you do need one to be a library director or an administrator, but those rules are kind of changing a little bit. So, however, when you go outside of public libraries, and most of my experience is in academic libraries, you tend to need a master’s in library science. And Yeah. Another step from that would be like the university that I was at in New York for many years, we were considered faculty. So, and that’s not true at all academic libraries, and I won’t go on and on about this, but there I needed 2 master’s degrees to even be on a tenure track.

You get into archives, rare books, you know, you could be a corporate librarian. Generally, you need a master’s degree for that, but for your Everyday public library, you might not necessarily need one. It depends on the role that you’re in. So when you see that person behind the reference desk, they might not have a library degree, but they may need one. And I can get into what we study at library school. Now, keep in mind that I went to library school almost, I don’t know, 15, 16 years ago, so I don’t have my curriculum memorized, but I can speak generally about what you learn there.

**John:** So what I heard an interesting distinction there, an academic library versus a public library. What’s the difference?

**Sarah:** So an academic library, so you work in academia, so you work in an institution of higher education. So that would be at a 2 to 4 year university. So I was at Hunter College in New York City. I’ve also worked at a local community college here in Cincinnati. It’s also different— sorry, different from a school librarian. So your son at his high school, maybe he has a school librarian or, you know, someone that works at an elementary school. So there’s different facets, there’s different kind of tasks, responsibilities, programming that you might do at all those different types of libraries.

**John:** What drew you into this? Because I know you’ve had— I think you were a massage therapist, you were a social worker. How did we get here?

**Sarah:** Yeah, it was a long circuitous path. And so what drew me to it— so yes, I started out in social work and got my master’s in social work, worked in that field for a couple years, have since maintained my licensure. So I do my continuing education, and I’ll get more into this later, but I Yeah. I still interact with the world of social work a lot. Yes, I did a detour as a massage therapist, which is a whole separate story.

It involved moving country and different places, and massage therapy was a great short-term profession that I had, but I knew that I wanted to kind of Yeah. —be in a professional line again, and I didn’t want to go back to being a practicing social worker. So I’ll try to keep this short, but basically I was going through a lot of soul-searching in my early 30s, and I was speaking with a friend who is an English professor, and I was just kind of venting about like, oh, I don’t know what I want to do.

And she asked me what everybody was asking me at that time, like, what do you enjoy? And just kind of in this flood of frustration, I was like, you know what I like to do? I like to watch documentaries and I like to look at Wikipedia and I like to do— and I was just kind of saying these things that I kind of just do in my spare time. It wasn’t things that I enjoyed in a professional realm necessarily. And she just really calmly looked at me and she was like, oh, so that’s like library science. And I was like, what?

So this light bulb went off. And to be fair, I had looked at library science in the early 2000s, but at that time it was only a remote degree that I could get and nobody was doing remote degrees in 2003. So I just thought that sounded really suspect. So I just kind of filed it away and didn’t think anything of it. Well, fast forward 7 or 8 years later when this friend of mine mentioned library science, I just thought, oh my God, that’s it.

So I enrolled in a graduate program that fall. This coincided with a move to New York City, and I just instantly was like, oh, these are my people, that I didn’t have with my other paths. I had gifts in those other paths and I liked those paths, but when I was around future librarians, I was just like, yeah, this is my lane. This is where I need to be.

**John:** What was it about them?

**Sarah:** I think that, I mean, obviously you’ve got people that you’re always going to have people in any field that are specialists from the get-go and know exactly what they want to do. But I found that in the company of other bookish librarian-type people that love to learn, we’re generalists. And so we have a real interest in a lot of different things and we like to collect information, sort information, make it accessible to others, geek out about any kind of esoteric, bizarre topics, and that was really celebrated.

And it was also unique because I was in New York at the time. There are actually 4 library schools in New York, but in New York you’re kind of surrounded by creatives and I guess there’s all the corporate types and all that, but I just found that I found my little niche of people there. And plus, I mean, I think obviously a lot of people, you think, oh, I love to read, and there’s that, but I knew that it was more than just about sitting behind a desk reading a book. It was actually about research. And I also knew that I wanted to go into academic libraries specifically. I’ve worked in public libraries, I was a children’s librarian for a little bit. I also was an archivist for a few years, and I loved that.

But in academic libraries, I was able to teach, I was able to research, and then I was also able to work with students and do kind of these, you know, classic like research consultations or just work with students at the reference desk. So it provided a really nice mix for me of kind of front-facing service, but also getting to research and publish and teach as well.

**John:** What does an archivist do?

**Sarah:** Well, in my case, so I worked at— I was a processing archivist. So in New York, which is a great place to be an archivist, there’s all these wonderful collections. So I worked at a transit museum, at the Transit Museum in Brooklyn. I worked at a small collection of archives that was like the seafarers’ archives. But the coolest job that I had, and I have to say these are kind rare is that I ended up working for a woman whose husband who had recently passed was a very well-known legal scholar at NYU.

And she had me come into her home and basically catalog, organize, file away all of his personal papers. He had first editions, signed copies of a really incredible collection of manuscripts and books. And And what I did is I created a finding aid so people who want to search that collection could see what was there. And that process took about 2, 2-and-a-half years. And so it was kind of neat. I mean, there’s just all these interesting individuals in New York that have these wonderful art collections. In his case, it was a lot of documentation and papers, but also his personal belongings, the photographs, the people that he knew. So yeah, that’s what I did there. So it’s preserving and then making that collection discoverable and searchable for others who want to learn from that archive.

**John:** Fascinating. What do people not know about public libraries that you know about?

**Sarah:** If you don’t have kids or you are purely, you know, getting your books from a bookstore, you may not be setting foot in your public library. I mean, I know for me there was a— or you have access to books in other places. Like, I know for me, like, I don’t have kids and any libraries that I was going to, you know, I would use my university library when I was a student, and I didn’t really start using public libraries again until, I don’t know, my late 20s or so.

So some people might think like, what’s the point of libraries when we have ebooks and that I can get everything off of Amazon or I can Google anything, right? I’m not going up to the reference desk to ask the librarian like, what’s the capital of Spain? So I’m not really clear on the stats, but I know that ebook usage has skyrocketed. So even if people aren’t setting foot into their public libraries, they’re utilizing that service of ebooks. So It’s highly used in that way. The other thing is it provides a lot of community programs. And so again, if you don’t have kiddos, you may not have set foot in your local public library for a long time, but there’s all these other programs. I mean, obviously you have things like arts and crafts and you have— but more and more it has become a really a hub of the community where, particularly for folks who have nowhere else to access resources and information, or even something as basic as Wi-Fi, is they are going to the library and they’re using it to get on the computer, to search for jobs, to— and I can get more into this— but to get connected with an individual who can then connect you with social services in your community.

It’s much more than that. There’s also services for new Americans, for for people experiencing homelessness, for, um, there are, uh, often they will partner, libraries will partner with community agencies. So legal aid, or, um, they will partner with, uh, health providers, public health officials. So we think of COVID right? Once library— I mean, some libraries never shut down during COVID but Libraries became a real touchpoint during the pandemic because they would offer information about COVID about accessing vaccines, about getting connected to healthcare providers.

Some of them, some libraries were even offering a space to get COVID and flu shots. It is a very active place, not only for just kind of your everyday patron, a woman with 3 children going to storytime, but they are providing— some of them have exercise classes, yoga classes. Some of them provide after-school meals for kids. It’s a very— I mean, most places, if you live anywhere near a school, You will see an influx of kids coming in around 3 o’clock. So it’s a safe place for kids and teens to be after school.

Often there are homework tutors or homework help. But really, it depends on the community itself. And any good library, and most are really good at this, is they know their community really, really well. And so the services and the programming that they provide, you know, maybe at your local branch may be very different than what they offer on another side of town with a different population. And so a library is going to try to cater to that very immediate community.

Now, obviously, there’s also books and electronic resources and video resources and all that. And so the language of those resources is going to match the languages that are spoken in that community. They’re actually very vibrant places. So they are not, they’re not your mother’s library. They’re not what we tend to think of as kind of these, like, you know, the shushing librarian, the quiet spaces, the, you know, um, I mean, you might have that, you know, with some rowdy teenagers, but, um, you might see security personnel in your library.

And we can get into a lot of the, the challenges that are showing up on the front Yeah. Of library doors, because as there have been fewer and fewer social services provided and accessible in the community, the library has kind of naturally evolved into the last free public space where you don’t need a membership card to physically be in the space. You don’t have to buy anything. You can Literally just walk in there and sit there all day. And some people do, right? And, you know, we can talk about why that is.

It’s a public square, essentially. And like anything in the public, there are challenges that come with that. So while they are vibrant spaces for the community, sometimes that vibrancy includes some problematic behaviors. Yeah. So I’ll leave it at that. But I mean, well, I won’t leave it at that, but for the moment, and then we can get into the, what libraries have done in response to that.

**John:** No, yes, I would. Because when you stopped by our house, I only talked to you, I think I talked to you in a doorway for like 5 minutes. I was like, whoa, there is so much. This explains so much. And it also helps me to kind of catch up because yes, my notion of libraries was my mother’s library. And I I think second, like, second only to going to church, we went to the library.

I mean, some of my very first memories are at a library. I’ve always gone to libraries. If I’m out of town or in another country, I love going to, like, they’re like churches to me, I guess, maybe. Yeah. So yes, I’ve noticed this shift. I thought it was just a Portland thing. I thought it was just a progressive Portland thing that all these people were in the library watching YouTube all day long, or I don’t know what they’re doing, but I’m sure some of them are doing— I have to be careful here. Like, I was gonna say productive things, but—

**Sarah:** Yeah, searching for a job.

**John:** Searching for a job. And then there are certain libraries that I just stopped going to because my ability to concentrate there, whether the smells, the guy with a sleeping bag over his head that was screaming.

**Sarah:** Yeah.

**John:** Or the people just— I mean, sometimes I would sit and I would see someone, I would go to this quiet room that’s no longer a quiet room. They took the doors off or whatever for some reason. And I would see people sitting there with like a stack of 10 DVDs. And they were, they were there for the day. Yeah. And I, I just found it so hard to be in those spaces because the feeling was, or the vibe that I was making up in my head at least was, we’re just killing time here. We’re not getting anything done. And I’m like, I’m here to be productive. And I just, anyway, all these different factors, just more and more and more, I’m just less and less. And I work from home. And so the library is kind of my escape of, you know, free Wi-Fi. I don’t have to buy coffee.

It’s super quiet, which I absolutely love. And none of the libraries here are quiet anymore. And I was like, what’s the problem? And I’m like, man, am I this old guy of get off my lawn or what’s going on here? But what you shared explains so much.

**Sarah:** Yeah. I mean, I can delve into it a little bit more. Like, first of all, I just want to say, like, I totally hear you. Like, I think people feel bad that they’re like, it’s really hard to concentrate when I’ve got I mean, I would say that about anywhere. If I went to Starbucks or a coffee shop and there was a really strong odor, or there’s even kids, if there’s kids or teenagers that are being super rambunctious, or I want to be in a place where I, if I’m going to the library for that purpose, and we’ll just stick with your example, like where I’m trying to get work done, I want a different space to get out of my house.

I would find that really challenging, right? I would go to a different coffee shop. So I get that. But even if the library was the only place that I could go because I, you know, didn’t want to have to be forced to buy a coffee at Starbucks or whatever is the closest place to me, I would— I think I’d still be frustrated that some of these distracting features would be there. And I’d want a response from the library to address that.

So I think we feel bad when we say that because we think like, oh my gosh, I’m this awful person. But, you know, ideally libraries are going to be, and they strive to be, welcoming places to everyone. Right? So, and I think that sometimes gets lost is like, yes, we want to be welcoming to folks experiencing homelessness or people with, you know, really strong body odor. But I also want a mother of 3 kids to feel safe there too. And if she doesn’t because someone is shooting up in the bathroom or taking a shower in the bathroom or having sex in the stacks. And these are all things that happen, or just even more so, even just like violent behavior, which has gotten more press lately. I mean, these things are happening. Like, I’m not bringing my nephew to that library.

So I get that. My hope, my goal as an educator is, and this is, you know, for the listeners, kind of where I’m going with this is, so I have kind of brought my social work background and my library role and kind of put those two together. And my expertise is on what, you know, what I call and other people call library social work. So it is It is helping libraries to respond to the community that they’re in.

And usually it’s challenges that they have and how do we respond in a way that is humane for everyone there, right? And so that could be bringing in a social worker, not necessarily. It could be strengthening relationships with community partners, social services. That, that are in that immediate vicinity of the library, but it’s also supporting the library staff so that, I mean, God bless them, but they are super stressed out. A lot of them are experiencing burnout because they were not trained in library school about how to respond to someone who is having a schizophrenic episode or someone who may be exhibiting escalated behavior or potentially violent behavior.

So how do they respond to that? How do they work with their security if they have library security? And then also, how do they create behavioral policies in their libraries that keep everybody safe? So what do you do when you have a patron who has really, really strong body odor? Or what is your bathroom use policy? Where do you— I mean, this has kind of been a topic for a long time, but, you know, where— how do you make sure that kids are safe in libraries? So you have adult-use computers and children computers and the kind of content that you can look at on those computers. And then how do you do that in a way that is, in social work speak, and this is grown in other fields, but in a way that’s trauma-informed, a way that is dignified— Dignifying to

**John:** How do you solve this? This sounds like this unsolvable nightmare of a problem.

**Sarah:** Well, I mean, I can rattle off a whole bunch of different libraries that have come up with really creative solutions to responding to these kind of challenges in their communities. Now, some libraries or communities erroneously think like, oh, let’s get a social worker Excuse me. Let’s get a social worker into our library and they will quote unquote fix the homeless problem, right? So social worker isn’t going to be able to do that. They don’t have a magic wand.

An entire city council cannot do that. So how do you create a space again that is welcoming to people that don’t have a stable home, but also has space and programming for them, can connect them with resources. So here’s an example. So in San Francisco, they were the nation’s first public library to hire a full-time social worker in 2009. So when we think about this current trend of social workers in libraries, we kind of pinpoint it at 2009.

And so one of the services that they have connected with is there is a local nonprofit called Lava Mae, and it’s It’s these kind of mobile buses that have showers in them. And so Lava Mae does the rounds throughout San Francisco, and one of the regular stopping points that they have is the downtown public library. So it’s not librarians out there that are offering this service, it’s that they are able to do what they do best, which is connecting people with information.

So this is a type of information where they might say, like, and we can get into into like the nuances of how do you actually, how would you refer someone who needs a shower to that service? I mean, that gets a little tricky. But to, and that’s maybe where you work with a social worker, but that is a way to say like, hey, there’s this existing service in San Francisco, let’s connect our patrons to that. So people can get the resources that they need and return to the library.

And this could be true with, again, with all different kinds of things, whether those are language services, whether that’s legal services, whether that’s That’s housing information. So on one hand, it’s not solvable. These problems are not going to all go away. But what I think what is hopeful, which is what is possible, is connecting patrons with existing resources and the experts that are in the community. So they can— how do I want to say this? Because it’s not solving their problems, but so it’s addressing their needs as best that we can.

Because left to its own devices, a library is not going to solve all of those issues, nor should they, because that’s not their role. A library cannot be all things to all people, but as a source of information, it does have a role. Um, in the— what in social work is called the continuum of care. So the library is not the savior. It is not the be-all and end-all, but it is a point, just like other points in the community, to address the needs of the people that walk into their doors.

So how they do that, you know, there’s various ways of doing that. But yeah, it does feel overwhelming at times. And you need to have, in order to even put a dent in this, you need to have Yeah. Great library leadership, and not just a sole library leader, but you need the understanding of the city council or whoever it is that’s going to come alongside the library, recognize the challenges that libraries are facing, and find ways to help libraries connect patrons with resources. I feel like I’m repeating myself, but yeah, and until that’s Done, you’re going to lose a lot of people that are coming to libraries because it just feels really chaotic. And you’re also going to lose librarians who are like, I’m out. I can’t do this kind of work, because they’re not supported adequately.

So there’s a lot of moving pieces, but I just want to be really clear that it is not the library’s sole responsibility. to fix the challenges that walk through the door. And by its very nature, public libraries are public, right? So you go to a public park.

**John:** Yes.

**Sarah:** You go to a public school. You go to— there are, you know, there’s— you’re going to have all cast of characters. So some of that’s like, we need to realize like, okay, but yeah, I hear what you’re saying. Like, there’s a point where it’s too chaotic or it feels too unsafe. And so everyone has to make that decision for themselves. Like, this just isn’t working for me. But for all the people that don’t really have a choice, as a community, we need to, you know, work with our city councils or who we vote in to make libraries a safe, thriving space.

**John:** And this really helps me because what you helped me— I love this term, it’s not your mother’s library. I’m still— yeah, my mind is still stuck in like kind of 1980.

**Sarah:** Sure.

**John:** You know, 1980, ’85 or so. And that’s— so it’s helpful to kind of hear all this to say, oh no, this has changed.

**Sarah:** Yeah, it has changed.

**John:** And my, like, one of the libraries I go to, you can hear, you can hear the kids screaming like at the other end of the library. Like, it’s not conducive for getting stuff done and it just never will be. And so going there thinking, dang it, this is the library. It’s supposed to be quiet in here. It’s like, John, get over it. This is not the place to do that. You need to go find somewhere else. That’s okay.

**Sarah:** Yeah, and there’s various reasons why it has changed so dramatically, and we can get into that. And I will say that COVID especially has done a lot for adding to the chaos. Mm-hmm. So I mean, there’s all kinds of societal challenges that it shows up at the library, right? And I will say that not every library is as you’re describing. Like my local library here at my childhood library that’s— I moved back to this area. It’s other than, you know, some rowdy teenagers, it’s pretty calm. You know, I can easily go there and study.

It’s— I don’t want to— for those folks out there who have not been in their public library lately, I’m not saying that this is every library across America. But I mean, you’re in an urban space. I mean, I know you’re not in downtown Portland, but— No. But Portland’s a big city. And yeah, so maybe it’s try a different branch. I don’t know.

**John:** Totally.

**Sarah:** If you have the choice. But you’re right. It’s to say, and librarians will say that as well. In fact, I should have sent this to you, but there was a major article in the New York Times just like 2 weeks ago. And it was about the stresses and strains and the crises that librarians are facing in public libraries. And I went to the comments section. I can send you the link to this article.

**John:** Yeah.

**Sarah:** And it’s just, my heart just kind of sank because it was, it was a lot of librarians who were commenting and just saying like, oh man, I’ve been in this field for 20 years and it’s totally different than it was 20 years ago, 15 years ago. So, um, it’s not just members of the public that are recognizing this, it’s people in the profession. It is showing up at discussions at conferences that I go to, showing up in the literature. And in fact, the reason I was out at this conference is the topic that I was speaking on. I was on a panel and the question was, should we as library educators start incorporating social work concepts and themes into library curricula? Like, should we be teaching our future librarians things about trauma-informed care and de-escalation and so forth? And so I spoke to that. So there are questions about that. How do we best prepare our future public librarians for the reality of what it’s like to work in these spaces in 2024?

**John:** So I listened to one of your podcasts. I think it was with Leah Dudak. Yeah. And she had the— she— there was some passing comment about like, oh, you know, how great it was that at this one library there were showers.

**Sarah:** Oh yeah.

**John:** But then she was raising the whole issue of like, well, who’s gonna police those showers? And my first thought was like, yeah, what a nightmare. I’m thinking of my public library and the people that work there and like them having to manage. I’m just— so that whole thing with the bus, I guess what I’m saying I don’t know, I’m stealing from technology a little bit, but they call it like microservices where you group these different services together and that service that specializes in that thing handles that job. And so that’s what I was hearing in San Francisco. That sounded really positive.

**Sarah:** Yeah, no, and I’m with you. I really, like, I just spoke with a librarian at Toronto Public Library this week and she was kind of educating me on their system there because she and the social worker at Toronto Public Library are gonna speak to my students in the spring. And she was saying that we, yes, we have a social worker, but our whole point in having her is twofold. One is she is providing services to our staff.

So it’s the social worker for the library staff to support them in the work that they’re doing and also to build relationships with existing community partners. Right? So it’s not, uh, you know, let’s pretend they had showers at the Toronto Public Library. It’s not that social worker that’s like monitoring the showers, right? Right. She’s working in conjunction with, um, that service or that agency so they can monitor that service. And I love that model. I think that’s— it’s a very humane service even for the social worker because you’ve got these social workers at libraries that are like, What the heck? There’s one for this whole system? That’s just not enough. But if you’re a connector to community partners, it helps everyone kind of carry the load a little bit rather than putting it all on one person.

**John:** You mentioned COVID, ebooks. One of my favorite things, I feel like it’s a superpower I have, is to walk the stacks and pull books off the— I don’t know what it is. I’ve done this since college and all over the place. I cannot tell you the number of amazing books that I have found just by walking the stacks and pulling books off the shelf, looking at the COVID flipping through it, and that I would have never searched.

**Sarah:** I know. Serendipitous browsing. That’s what it’s called.

**John:** Oh, there’s a— there’s— is there science behind this? Do I have a special superpower? No. And what is— how does this exist in this online—

**Sarah:** You don’t have a special superpower.

**John:** Oh, come on.

**Sarah:** What you’ve experienced is the joy of serendipitous browsing, and that has been a concern with ebooks is that— Yes! Now, if you go on a library’s website where they have a catalog, or, you know, they have this on Amazon where they provide something similar, right? Like what— well, in the library’s catalog, they will literally show you what is on the shelf, what is on the physical shelf. And on Amazon, they’ll say, people who liked this book like this book.

But much like being out in the real world and bumping elbows with a human being, it’s just not the same. So being in a physical space where you go to the shelf to find your John Grisham novel or something much more highbrow than that, or especially with subjects, not just fiction, but you’re in the architecture section and then you stumble across this book on abstract expressionism or something, something else in the art section that you would never have found Yeah. Otherwise.

That’s something that, yes, they’ve tried to replicate digitally, and sure, we have found some things digitally. But yeah, it just— that’s kind of a lost pleasure of being in a physical space where you’re browsing the shelves and you have this serendipitous discovery of a title or a topic. I always think of that with in New York when I lived there for many years. And I would often on Sundays just walk my dog randomly down a different street and I saw all kinds of funky shops that I would just kind of stumble into, these pop-up shops, or I would note a new restaurant. And I’ve noticed since living back in Ohio these last 2 or 3 years, I don’t have that. I just go on OpenTable or Eater or something to look for a new restaurant. Right. I don’t— where some of my best finds in New York were just because they were there. I was there. You know what I mean? So I know what you’re saying. It’s not a superpower, but it feels like it is.

**John:** I think it is. I’m going to claim it as mine.

**Sarah:** Okay.

**John:** Now for COVID, the other thing I’m super curious about with circulation. So I feel like one of the problems at our library with COVID was all the books came in But none of the books were going out. And that had me think at a certain time as I’m walking around the library, because the shelves are mostly full. I’m thinking, I wonder what’s— is there like a percentage or ratio of the number of materials that are not at the library? They’re all out in circulation?

**Sarah:** I’m not sure I understand your question.

**John:** My question is, when I go into the library and I see that the shelves are mostly full of books.

**Sarah:** Okay. Yeah.

**John:** What’s the percentage of books that are not there, that are out in the community or out in the world?

**Sarah:** I don’t know what that number is, but I can tell you, so Cincinnati Public Library where I am, Cincinnati-Hamilton County Public Library, they— and I can fact-check this— I think we have the 2nd highest circulation numbers in the country for a library system. So the amount of books that get moved around, they get checked out, checked back in. My And my understanding is that’s mostly ebooks, right? Oh,

**John:** interesting.

**Sarah:** And that trend— and I’m not up to date on my public library stats, but that is kind of what has kept a lot of libraries in business is because so many people utilize ebooks. So yeah, you go into the library and you see a fair amount of print Yeah. Print materials on the shelf. I don’t know the number, but I know for every new bestselling book that a library might have 7 or 10 print volumes or print copies of that book, but they’re gonna have 30 ebooks of that title or 30 copies, and they’re almost always checked out and I have to wait in line for those or a virtual line for those. So I mean, I mean, I can fact-check that, but it also depends on the type of book. Like kids’ books, they tend to have a lower volume of ebooks because children’s librarians and parents or caretakers understand the value of physical books.

And kids and their parents are walking into libraries more than you and I are when we don’t necessarily— it’s not our only source of materials. And I don’t need a physical I mean, I personally like physical books. I don’t check out ebooks, but I’m not checking out a storybook where I need to have that tactile learning. So I’m not sure if that answers your question, but I can look into that. But yeah, there’s a lot going behind— there’s a lot going on on your Libby app.

**John:** Yeah, that’s the one I use.

**Sarah:** Yeah.

**John:** Yeah. And yeah, it sort of doesn’t— yeah, it just was this kind of thought that I had Yeah, I wonder how many more books there are.

**Sarah:** Well,

**John:** if all the library books came in and no books were checked out, the impression I got was during COVID they were like stacked, like they were stacked all over the place because they were just returning the books and they weren’t, you couldn’t check any books out.

**Sarah:** Yeah, no, there’s definitely e-resources. Well, and I also wanna say too, and is that it’s much more than just books. So the libraries will offer online newspapers, online databases. And so if you want to read the historical New York Times or so, like in your area, there would be all of these local historical or current newspapers that would be available to you. You would have different kind of standard databases. So those would be genealogical databases or law databases. I mean, there’s all kinds of online textbooks and resources for just about any topic. Now, it’s not as thorough as what I found working at a university library.

And then you’ve got, not to mention, Kanopy and other videos. I mean, if you If you just go on your Portland Public Library website, you can rent— rent, you know, you can check out for free. Yes. It’s not quite the same as Netflix, but there’s the Criterion Collection and wonderful digital resources that fall outside of the realm of fiction and nonfiction, or fiction, I should say. So there’s a whole host of resources. There. And, you know, and then there’s Duolingo and language resources and so forth. So if you’re not checking out ebooks, there’s a lot on there.

**John:** Hmm. Anything else about libraries? Maybe, I don’t know, any challenges or—

**Sarah:** Oh my gosh.

**John:** Public service messages that you would like to put out into the world?

**Sarah:** Yeah, I feel like I’m just scratching the surface. Yeah, I guess I would just say is that because libraries are— they are really heavily utilized by all kinds of people. And a reflection of that is the fact that you have libraries all across the country that are still investing, like their communities are still investing a lot of money into libraries and they’re updating the facilities. Like here in Cincinnati, they’re just finishing up a multi-year campaign to revamp a lot of— we redid our main library downtown and a number of branch libraries.

Libraries around the country are making kind of, you know, they’re always seeking and working to be relevant, useful spaces in responding to the needs of the community. So because people are using the library, All kinds of people. Communities are investing in it. And if no one was going to the libraries, if no one cared about libraries, you wouldn’t see this massive kind of reconstruction of libraries into these beautiful, useful spaces. They would just kind of die and go away. And I know that there’s— well, another thing I could get into is a lot of the the current controversy that is occurring because of book banning and all that.

If no one was using the libraries and they were just these dead spaces or they were only spaces that were being used by people with strong psychosocial needs, there would be no book banning controversies. I mean, you might have that in a digital realm, but Because they are so highly used and people have such strong feelings about their public library, as you do, as I do, it speaks to the ongoing relevancy of libraries.

**John:** So it sounds like, just like you and me, libraries are a work in progress.

**Sarah:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they’ve always been evolving, right? Like, when libraries started, it was only for the monks, right? And the learned and people who could read. And then, you know, the American Library Association was formed in like 1876, and for a long time, the librarians— well, even throughout the Middle Ages— were like kind of the gatekeepers, right, about providing texts to those who were so lucky to enter through the doors. Yeah.

And then you had kind of these different shifts throughout history, but libraries have always— and I think what’s so cool about them is they’ve always tried to respond to what’s going on in the world, and they have demonstrated their relevance over and over again. And so So the backbone of libraries, I think, like the mission, I mean, is to provide information to people. And so what that looks like, the kind of information has changed. And also, they’ve always kind of had a relationship with what is around them. So while we have this current iteration of libraries bringing in social workers or social work students or public health workers, workers, they’ve always kind of responded to the needs of their community.

For instance, having read library history, in the 1930s, the libraries were these vibrant communities in the 1930s because you had so many men that were unemployed and spent countless hours in the library. And so Right. Rather than it just kind of being a holding space, it was really a place to connect those men with resources. Or anytime there’s been natural disasters, I’m thinking of the flood in New York in 2012, Sandy, or Hurricane Sandy, it was often the libraries that were being these kind of resource centers that were providing clean water and diapers and these kind of distribution centers.

And I will just say too, a point with COVID is a lot of libraries kind of became that as well. I have a problem with some libraries. It was like they just expected the, like, oh, we can’t close, we’re the library. And they really put a lot of their workers at risk when it was like, no, everybody needs to shut down. It’s important, but we’re not EMTs, right? So I do see a nice trend happening, a very necessary trend happening right now in the library world where librarians are really speaking up for themselves and saying like, hey, we need better supports to be able to do the job that we do.

So yeah, we’re kind of in this real growing pains right now, but I feel hopeful that we’re gonna kind of find our way about how best to respond to things because the challenges in the community are not going to go away.

**John:** No, they’re just going to keep evolving.

**Sarah:** Yeah, right.

**John:** So where can people find you if they want to learn, like if anything’s piqued their interest and they want to go deeper on

**Sarah:** this? Yeah, so I have a Substack. It’s librariesocialwork.substack.com. And if you go to that site, you will get links Or connected to my podcast. I have a podcast called Library Social Work. There’s also, you know, you can find me on LinkedIn, but I prefer that people go to my Substack page. Yeah, I, on my podcast, I speak to experts who are doing library social work or connected with library social work in some way.

And I feel like I’m a better interviewer than interviewee. So that is where I talk to people in libraries across the country or social work professionals that know a lot about how to best kind of meet the needs of our patrons across the country. And so, yeah, you can check me out there. I also have a list there of anyone who’s interested in literature on this topic. Of course, as a librarian, I have a bibliography page there. And so I need to organize it a little bit better, but I’ve broken it down into not just library social work collaborations, but I talk also about peer navigators, which is a whole other awesome model that isn’t actually social work but is social work adjacent that I think is awesome that a lot of libraries are doing, as well as I’ve got information about just like news articles that have kind of addressed, yeah, a lot of what I’ve talked about today.

**John:** Anything else?

**Sarah:** Thanks for your interest in this topic. Yeah, I don’t know how close you live to other branches, but yeah, maybe check out a different branch. Or at the very least, what I would say to people is if you are disheartened by what you’re seeing at your library, I’ve certainly seen comments in our local paper about bemoaning the state of public libraries, but I would really encourage people to get involved and be cognizant of who they vote for and who the library board is in their community and really encourage community leaders to be aware of what’s going on at the library so that they can step in and really support our local branches so we can provide safe, flourishing spaces to everybody. So that you feel like you can go back to your local branch.

The post 132: Not Your Mother’s Library with Sarah Johnson appeared first on John Poelstra.

Tammi Scott joins me to discusses career coaching. Tammi explains that she and her business partner, Elisa, are launching Empowered Careers Group, LLC, which offers a comprehensive career coaching program.

We explore various aspects of career coaching, including its definition, approach, and benefits. Tammi emphasizes that career coaching is not about providing a “crystal ball’ solution,” but rather a process of self-discovery and strategic planning.

This conversation also touches on the role of AI in career coaching, the importance of networking, and the typical duration of coaching engagements. Tammi highlights the value of having a coach for accountability, support, and guidance through the ups and downs of career transitions. We also discuss the differences between career coaching and other forms of guidance, such as personal training or consulting. Tammi shares insights on resume writing, negotiation strategies, and the benefits of having a career coach.

Our conversation challenges the common misconception that career coaches should provide immediate answers or specific job recommendations. Instead, Tammi describes career coaching as a facilitated journey of self-discovery, where clients explore their ideal work environment, values, and professional aspirations. While coaches can provide specific guidance on resumes and salary negotiations, the core work involves helping clients understand themselves better to make informed career decisions.

## Related Episodes

– [Improve Your Job Search with Email: Tammi Scott (127)](https://johnpoelstra.com/improve-job-search-email-tammi-scott-127/) — my first conversation with Tammi

All songs licensed under Creative Commons

## Transcript

*This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.*

**John:** Alright, today we’re talking to Tammi Scott once again. Tammi, thanks for joining me again.

**Tammi:** It’s good to be here.

**John:** So I reached out to Tammi again because of a few convergences, the first of which, if you haven’t listened to Tammi’s episode about, uh, sending— like, if you’re in the job search or you’re making a transition or something, if you have not done that and you’re entertaining the idea, or it sounded like a good idea but you haven’t quite done it. I have one person I’m working with right now, Tammi. They sent it out before they were ready. They had 8— they’ve set up 8 meetings, and one of the people they met with so far has referred them to 4 other people.

**Tammi:** That’s really impressive. And just to give some more context for anybody who hasn’t listened to that episode yet, we’re talking about the like the networking email that goes out to your contact list, your people you know, and your family, your friends, colleagues, person at the grocery store, whoever.

**John:** Yes, yes. And the context of this too is, oh, maybe I’m looking to do something new, or I’m transitioning jobs, or I’m unemployed, or whatever the case may be, and you’ve tried applying for 1,000 jobs on LinkedIn and nothing’s happening. And what was great about this one was I shared your episode. I shared an example of your email. They said, oh, I’m totally going to do this. And then you could see all the little like, well, I’m working on it, but you know, I need to get a little— because they’re in kind of this transition of I was doing one thing, I took a break, and now I’m going to start ramping up and looking for the next thing that’s maybe the same thing but different. And so they said, well, I need to get a little clearer. I need to get a little clearer before I send this out. And I said, well, I’m a real fan of starting as soon as you can. So what if this is just the first email? It’s just a warmup and you’re just saying hi for the first time in a long time and you just start there.

**Tammi:** Yes.

**John:** Okay. Okay. I’ll try that. And then when they came back and said, you’re not going to believe this, but 8 people, I don’t know if it was 8 people responded, Or 8? Well, I know they, they have 8 meetings on their calendar to meet with 8 different people as a result of sending this email without even being completely clear about what they want to do next, even though they’re getting clearer anyway. So, yeah.

**Tammi:** That’s awesome. That’s awesome. I love those stories.

**John:** Yes. So today I wanted to talk to you because I keep coming across this notion of career coaching And you and I had— I had been wondering when I was going to get the latest installment of your email because I hadn’t seen it in a while. And all of a sudden it said you said that you were doing a new business— or not a new business, you’ve been coaching forever— but you were doing something around career coaching. So I want you to tell people what that is, and then I have some questions about career coaching I wanted to get into.

**Tammi:** Absolutely, yes. So As you know, I’ve been coaching for years, and my coaching continues to evolve as I do. And I’ve been doing executive coaching for quite a while. And then a friend of mine who was also a former work colleague, she’s an HR executive. So, the two of us, she had worked with a career coach who’s very well known in the industry, and he’s retired. And he developed this great system to take his clients through for 3 months, 6 months. And it’s a very complete system in terms of really diving into what is going, you know, for somebody to get more clear about what’s important to them, you know, and know themselves better so that he can help them in those next stages of their transition, you know, whatever their next career strategy is. And so we are actually gonna be— we’re in the process of working through the contract, but we’re acquiring that program and we’re gonna make it ours. And so we’re in the process of a pre-launch of our company called Career Potential Group, LLC. And our intention is to take that program make it ours and help a lot of clients in the area of career coaching, career strategy, career management. I mean, there’s a lot of— there’s so many— some people think, oh, I’ve got my job, I can just rest on that. It’s like, no, no, don’t rest on that. Most people change jobs every 2 to 3 years. There’s no resting on that. And that would be the— there are some exceptions, of course, But for most people, that’s not the case. So, don’t wanna just rest for 2 years and then all of a sudden be like, oh my gosh, I don’t know where to begin.

**John:** So, what made me think of you as well was what I’m calling the career coach— career coaching crystal ball, which is any number of different ways someone might get referred to me. And I will ask them, you know, what can I help you with? Or sometimes I get a little bit of a kind of a pre-thing is that this is what this person’s And I recently had a situation where someone wanted some very specific guidance based on— they have several years of experience. They wanted very specific guidance as to what they should do next, where they should look, what would be a fit for them. And the more we talked over email before we had a first meeting, I always do a first few meetings with people before we really officially work together just to see if we’re a fit. And they opted out. And because as I started to say, well, you know, why don’t we— we could also look at your values. That could be a place we could look. And they said, you know what? I’ve already done a lot of that work. I don’t want to do that. I am looking for someone that will tell me what to do or where I should look. Because I had been very clear saying, I don’t give specific or explicit Career advice. So that got me to wondering, okay, coaching can be a very ambiguous term. It’s used in lots of different ways. There’s no official definition. But it got me to wondering, what is career coaching? How do you define it? Does career coaching— does— is there a crystal ball? Like, are there coaches? Are there people that look in a crystal ball or pull tarot cards or are like so experienced in life that they know every single career that’s possible out there, that you can just like meet with them, consult with them, and they will say, here’s what you should do. And you’ll— I don’t know if they give any guarantees they’d be happy or anything. But anyway, those are all the things that are kind of swimming around over here in terms of what can you— how can you help me clarify what this is, what you think of it, what you think is possible? This is a horrible question. I’m asking you like 55 questions here at once, so you can pick the one you like. And then to add on to all of this, I even took this to my own coach to say, isn’t this kind of curious? And also in conjunction with— I mentioned before we started here— working with a personal trainer. I’ve never worked with a personal trainer before, and I’m like, this is kind of curious. Like, this person tells me exactly what to do and I will most likely get the results that I’m after. And I’m wondering if as people— are looking for coaches or career coaching. They’re not. They’re looking for a very specific thing and think that someone can give it to them. So with all of that, what are you hearing? And I’m so glad you’re a coach. What are you— what are you hearing in all of those questions and thoughts and wonderings? And

**Tammi:** yeah, well, I mean, maybe there are coaches out there or career strategists out there who would guide somebody, a client, in the way of like, here’s the way you go, here’s what you need to work in, you’ll be happy in this area. That’s not me. That’s not the work that I do. Um, I, I want to really slow the client down and I like get into their world. Like, and I— one of the things that I have clients do is to like write out what their ideal day is. What is like, what, what would they be doing? Ideal workday, let’s be clear. Um, ideal workday, like what would that look like? You know, it’s, do, does somebody wanna work by themselves? Do they wanna work on a team? Do they wanna work at home, work in the office, office environment? The kinds of people that they wanna work with, the kind of work that they wanna do. Is it, I mean, there’s so— you can imagine, I mean, there’s 8 billion people on this planet, and so there are going to be a lot of unique answers to that, and only that person can know themselves, right? And so we want to find out what lights a person up, where do they come alive, and then we want to start to look at that. And then we want to look at their experience. You know, are they wanting, you know, if they’ve been an engineer, do they now want to be a nurse? Okay, well, that’s pretty clear that that’s going to require some education, etc. But we want to look at if somebody has been an engineer, it’s like, okay, well, how, you know, what about it do they like? What do they not like? You know, where in that? So we start to, we just start to put the pieces. It’s like a puzzle. You start to put the pieces of the puzzle together so that you can start to see a more clear picture. And then we have them do some research. What kind of companies do you think you want to work for? Is it, you know, big companies, corporations, organizations, nonprofit, for-profit, all those kinds of things? So, so there’s a lot of pieces of the puzzle, but once you start taking those individual pieces of the puzzle and start putting them together, start seeing, oh, okay, well then there’s a variety of potential job roles that are out there for you. And then even just starting to look, like grab a job role, look on LinkedIn, and then look at the job description. How does it, you know, how does that feel when you read that job description? Does that excite you? You know, what is it about that? So it’s, it’s really— I, I’m here as the coach to certainly guide them, but the, the work is for the client so that they can be really invested in their own career. I mean, that’s the key.

**John:** So in the way that you approach it, understanding that there’s lots of different approaches, how specific How prescriptive, yeah, how prescriptive would you be?

**Tammi:** And say more, like in what way?

**John:** How much would you say, oh, okay, so you have a background in aerospace and public accounting, so here are the top 5 industries you should be looking at.

**Tammi:** Oh yeah, that they’ll do the research.

**John:** That’s their work then.

**Tammi:** Yeah, because I don’t know that. I don’t know aerospace industry or I, That’s not my— that’s not where I have knowledge. I mean, I may have some insight, but I may know nothing about that industry. So that person will know, they know their industry, right? It’s— so they get to do that research, they get to do that homework, but I’m gonna help them identify those pieces of the puzzle. There’s a lot of— it’s like, you know, it’s some people, including myself in the past, have fallen into a career path and it’s just like by meeting somebody and like, hey, here’s a job. Okay, I’ll do that. That sounds great. And that can work. Until it doesn’t.

**John:** Mm-hmm.

**Tammi:** And then somebody’s like, I really want something more fulfilling and meaningful. I have so much experience. I have so many skill sets. I want to put this all together in a package and, and put it into a career that really lights me up. So that’s a little different than like somebody coming along and saying, here’s a job for you. And so let me preface that. Let me back up because that could happen. So once a person has some clarity about what their ideal workday is, the kind of community, organization, company they wanna work for, like once they have that, all those pieces of the puzzle, then somebody can come by and say, hey, I’ve got this great opportunity for you. Now you’ve got, instead of just saying yes to it, well, tell me more about that opportunity. Does it, like, how much overlay does it have to what my puzzle looks like? Like, how much of a match is it?

**John:** Mm-hmm.

**Tammi:** It doesn’t have to be 100%, but does it match the things that are really important for me and what I’ve already gotten clear about.

**John:** So what I’m hearing is the way you approach it is you have a— you are a facilitator. You are facilitating the process of them doing the work.

**Tammi:** Yeah.

**John:** And it’s not exactly like having a personal trainer or a consultant.

**Tammi:** Correct.

**John:** Or a personal shopper at Nordstrom where you go in and say, hey, I want this, and they’re like, oh, I know exactly what would fit your body type. Or when you did shoes, like, my hunch is people would come in with some sort of specification and you would narrow it down to probably, here are your 5 best choices or whatever.

**Tammi:** Right, right. Yeah. I don’t have the— I don’t have all these jobs at my fingertips that I can offer to somebody and say, here, this is probably the right fit given what I know about you. It’s, it’s different, right? I don’t, I don’t have the end— I don’t have that end product for them. I have the process for them to find their end product, which is their job.

**John:** And this got me to thinking, and I’m curious what you think about this, of taking this to my coach. And we were playing with this and the idea of the initial appeal of having someone tell you what to do. It’s initially more appealing if I just go see Tammi and Tammi or John and they can tell me exactly where to look and what to do, then I’m done. If I go to the gym and meet with my trainer and do the reps that they say, I will be done. But it’s a category mistake. That’s the realization, I guess, that I’m having. And it’s interesting as people come to me wanting this thing that I’m like, I can’t give it to you. And they go away and that’s okay. And just thinking that’s how interesting that is, that I don’t know that we have this idea of a shortcut or a— someone can tell me the answer.

**Tammi:** Well, yes, yes. And that can be comforting sometimes. I get that. I might do a little more telling when it comes to the resume, because eventually you get to the point of crafting a really good resume, and that’s important. It’s not the only thing that’s important, but it is important to have a good resume. And I, I have a client right now that I’m— we’ve been going back and forth on drafts and just getting it better and better and better. And so I, I’ll be very specific in my feedback on, on the resume, you know, so that she can have a great resume. And then 2, like, there’s other components as well, like the negotiation process. I just helped— I just worked with a client who received an offer from a company she used to work for, and she had an offer letter and she said, should I take it? I’m like, well, do you want to take the first offer? Do you want to— I think you can do better. Hmm. I think it’s a great— it’s a great offer, and I think you can do better. Are you willing to have that conversation? So we did some role-playing and just practice, and she had a few back-and-forth emails with the owner of the company, not negotiation, like getting clarity around the offer itself so that we could see, okay, this is what the actual offer, the actual numbers look like. So once she had that, then it’s like, we could look at that and go, okay. And then she set up a meeting with her, with the owner, and we worked out a script for her to say that. So even if she got nervous, she could stick with what she wanted to say instead of not— instead of going off on a tangent or forgetting something. And, and she was able to— she was able to get more than that offer and something that felt Good for her and it felt good for the owner. So it was a real win-win. It wasn’t too hardball. She probably— maybe she could have gotten even more and she just wasn’t quite in a place to do that, but she was really happy with what she— what they settled.

**John:** So what I hear there is, is in that context, more prescriptive. I would call it prescriptive. You’re giving more advice, you’re getting more specific, you’re saying Hey, this is missing from your resume, or this part feels kind of weak, or I think we can get more money here. Would you like to do that? So, there’s an aspect of advice giving, checking in, what do you want? How am I helping? That might be a— so, I guess what I’m hearing is it kind of narrows down maybe depending on where you are in the process. There can be more advice as opposed to, well, if you were to prepare for a negotiation, how would you want to do it? Right. That would be the classic open-ended coaching question that would really bug bugs some people. Yes. They’re

**Tammi:** like, well, that’s why I’m coming to you.

**John:** Right.

**Tammi:** Yes. Yeah, I’m kind of— I, I think that’s a part of wanting to create this, uh, this— ask this part of coaching and the career coaching with my business partner Elisa, in that for me, it’s as, as a female especially, I, I know that I have left in my past career life, I have left a lot of on the table, where I didn’t advocate for myself. I got better towards the later part of my career. I got better at negotiating. But initially, I didn’t have the tools. I didn’t even think that I could negotiate. And there’s an added aspect in there sometimes. I won’t say this is true for all women. I think that because women have been in the workforce longer now, that I think we’re getting better at this, and that is negotiating our salaries and negotiating better salaries. And I think there’s still a lot of room for improvement out there as well.

**John:** What are some ways that career coaching can help that people might not realize?

**Tammi:** I think staying on track and accountability, but also working, having a clear plan. So working out a clear plan with your, with your career coach and setting out some, some strategy for your, for your career search is really helpful. And, and then having somebody to have eyes on what you’re doing or not doing, what you’re saying or not saying. The— when, especially when you start getting into the interview process and having the feedback on the interview of, you know, practicing interview questions and answers, like all of that. I mean, I think it’s— I think about what it might’ve been like had I had a career coach in my early and even a little bit later in my career. And I would think, oh my gosh, to have somebody that was standing behind me, not literally, but that was my partner in this process could have been so incredibly valuable. And maybe I would’ve made different choices in my career. I don’t have any regrets of what I did do, But I may have made some different choices. I know that I would have been further ahead salary-wise in some of those jobs.

**John:** What are the things that career coaching cannot do, maybe beyond the things we’ve already talked about?

**Tammi:** I think what you were speaking to earlier and what it can’t do, at least not my work, not saying somebody isn’t out there doing it, is to find the magic bullet that is quick and easy. I don’t think that career coaching does that.

**John:** And with that in mind, how long is an average engagement?

**Tammi:** That’s a good question. I think I’m still discovering that as a career coach. It depends on where somebody’s at in their— like, if they are at a job, And they’re thinking that they’re ready to start looking for something else, then I would say 6 months is great.

**John:** Hmm.

**Tammi:** To work with a coach for 6 months. So I think that’s a really nice amount of time to just really— they don’t have to— there’s no, you know, there’s a steadiness of the process, but it’s not an overload. If somebody is just laid off, from a job or has been fired from a job or quit, then I think that it depends on their financial situation. So if they do have time, 6 months again is great. 3 months can be really key, and it’s just a— it’s a little bit more intense process. But if somebody’s not working, more than likely they may have that space to do that.

**John:** And then 3 months is still— go ahead.

**Tammi:** Yeah, 3 months is still, still a good amount of time. And then, like, the, the client that I mentioned about the negotiation process, like, I— she came to me with an offer letter. So,

**John:** okay, that’s where you started.

**Tammi:** That’s where, that’s where we started. Uh, I would— I’d like to have started with her earlier, of course, but that’s where she was. So we— I met her there, and then we just— we worked Really, literally for a couple hours.

**John:** But what I’m not hearing is, oh, someone says, oh, I want to find a different job, and they meet with you twice and then they’re done. It’s a— it’s kind of an— it’s an unfolding process.

**Tammi:** It is. And, and there’s a lot— it’s very hands-on. So probably different than when— than a lot of coaches, uh, operate, like in— as an executive coach or a life coach, where you might meet with your client Once every 2 weeks, twice a month, or some— maybe some do once a week. This is a very— a much more hands-on approach. So depending on where the client is in the process, it might be once a week. And then when the interview process is happening, it might be more. When the negotiation process is happening, it might be more. So, it’s very— there’s a lot of— it’s different. It’s not just like, oh, we’re going to meet every other week and that’s it.

**John:** Okay. So, if someone’s looking for a career coach, or they think that they want a career coach, or they’re starting with this whole path, there’s something wrong with their— wrong, they want something different in their career, and they’re looking for— they think they’re looking for a career coach. What would you suggest they be looking for?

**Tammi:** A career coach that is going to work with them on the intern— in their internal world. And what I mean by that is, like you mentioned values before, and I mentioned like ideal workday, and it goes further than that. And I think that it’s important for the coach to know that person as much as possible and for, in the conversation, for that person to get to know themselves as much as possible. So I would say, like, if I was looking for a career coach, I want somebody who’s listening to me, who understands me, who I feel is going to be a great partner in this process with me that I can trust. That is, um, maybe that’s, that’s a starting place.

**John:** Yeah, and, and I would also add to that, which is have an experience with them. My own philosophy on this is we don’t talk about money, there’s no exchange of money until we’re really clear that we’re working together for a period of time. So my encouragement to people would be have the experience of being coached by that person. Have a first session and pretend like, oh, this is the first of many. We don’t know where it’s going to go, but have that experience. And if you have to pay for that experience, I have kind of mixed feelings about that because my approach is I don’t charge for that. I— so,

**Tammi:** agree. Yeah, agree, agree. And one of the reasons that I am working with Elisa, that we’re working together, is that she has a very strong HR background of many, many years. So she is— she has a whole different view of the career coaching experience. I have years of coaching experience working with executives, business owners, et cetera. So we bring that together. I mean, we each work with our own clients, but we collaborate and so that we can support our clients at the highest level possible. And so I might draw upon some of her experience, like the negotiating, for example. That’s— she’s great at that. And I might draw upon that so that I can serve my client in the best way possible.

**John:** In this world of AI, this person that came to me thinking that I could answer their questions based on This seems like the perfect setup. They tell ChatGPT everything about themselves, what they’ve done, and then they say— I mean, it seems like there’s a per— that’s a perfect place for AI. Is that— could that work?

**Tammi:** Yeah, I would, I would even say that to my client if they were really in that question. I would say, you know what, put your whole resume into ChatGPT. Just copy and paste it into ChatGPT and, and then ask it, Anything you want. What roles do you recommend given my resume? And see what it says.

**John:** Well, then why do they need you?

**Tammi:** Well, I mean, we’re talking about just roles in general. I see it as just a— I see it as a great tool. I mean, sometimes I will even plug in a line on somebody’s resume. I might plug that into ChatGPT and say, can you rewrite this, make it make it stronger, make it, uh, you know, whatever I’m wanting to get from that. So I, I use it as a tool. I think it’s a great tool. Nothing wrong with that. I don’t want it coaching me.

**John:** And I’m guessing it misses some of the deeper nuances of— yeah, what would, what would it miss?

**Tammi:** Well, it would miss— I mean, we have a whole process, a whole system that we work with that we take clients through. Somebody could actually, you know, purchase just the, the system itself and go do it themselves. They could do that. Nothing wrong with that. I’d be willing to, you know, agree on a price for that. That’s fine for somebody who’s self-motivated. And there’s something about, of, of being in the coaching conversation that oftentimes It surfaces new insights, it surfaces new ideas that we couldn’t have done each of us individually. I mean, wouldn’t you say that that’s true for you with your coaching clients? Like, you know, they could probably go achieve what they want on their own, maybe.

**John:** Yeah, what was coming to me was the notion of accountability.

**Tammi:** Yes.

**John:** I know I’m meeting Tammi next week and I said I would work on my resume and I haven’t done it. Oh, hmm. And you know, of course there’s all— there’s no judgment in that. There’s always learning. Oh, what happened? Oh, well, I got too caught up in this board meeting and all this other stuff and I never sat down to do it.

**Tammi:** Right.

**John:** Oh, okay.

**Tammi:** So, yes,

**John:** what do we want to do differently? And there’s coaching right there, there’s learning right there. And there’s also just knowing, oh, I said I would do this, so I don’t want to show up to that meeting with Tammi and like totally empty-handed, so I’m going to stay up later than I would have preferred.

**Tammi:** Yes. And there’s also— the process will surface where we get stuck, where we have limiting beliefs about ourselves, about what’s possible. We get our first rejection letter.

**John:** It’s— There’ll be all kinds of stuff there. Yes.

**Tammi:** Then you’re like, oh, I don’t think I can do this anymore. Or you send out your networking email, nobody responds, and it’s just soul-crushing. I think of it as just like the whole process is not just a linear line from point A to point B, you know, point A and then your job is at point B, but there’s a lot that happens in between there. And having a coach, of course, support you through all the ups and downs and the turbulence and the winds and the soul-crushing defeat at times can be so helpful.

**John:** I mean, what’s also coming to me too, having done this a little bit myself, was yes, if you want an answer, ask ChatGPT.

**Tammi:** Yes.

**John:** If you want to go on a path of self-discovery, self-understanding, um, I don’t know if I’d say enlightenment, but there could be some enlightenment there. Just if— yeah, I guess I’m just thinking for someone that’s just thinking, do I want to do this? Do I need to do this? My encouragement would be, if you want to learn more about yourself and that’s fun, this is the perfect way to do it.

**Tammi:** Yes. I mean, I have a coach as I’m building this business.

**John:** I do too.

**Tammi:** Yes. I— could I do it on my own? Maybe. But I want that support because I know what, I know what the coaching relationship can do. It can get me there faster. And it can be— and just the support, knowing that I have that support and accountability is priceless.

**John:** Is there anything else we should cover as it relates to this area?

**Tammi:** Yeah, I mean, I feel like this has just been a great conversation to give some context to career coaching and what’s involved in working with a career coach and the nuances of the process.

**John:** Mm-hmm.

**Tammi:** And I think a lot of people, myself included in the past, have operated in, oh, I need to find a job, so I’m going to apply to everything I can online. I was talking to a He’s a recruiter, internal recruiter for a big company. And he said when he posts a job opening on LinkedIn, within 1 day, he will have 1,000 applications. And I’ve heard more. Like, I’ve heard some postings will get 3,000, 4,000 because there’s also the bots out there. Yeah. And I don’t— that just blast resumes to any job opening out there. So you can imagine that, you know, if I was sending in a resume, it’s in that shuffle, not great chances. And, you know, I think that— and not to say you can’t find a job that way, uh, it’s just not that easy.

**John:** No, and it goes back to our previous conversation about networking and who you know and Yeah, I’ve seen some of that recently with, uh, someone that I know that was doing the more LinkedIn stuff, and then they found a new situation and it was through someone they knew.

**Tammi:** Right.

**John:** And, and which is the other thing going through my head there is people get so frustrated with, you know, it’s all AI today and the ATS, whatever ATS stands for, I think is in terms of the resume screening thing. On the other hand, if you’re getting 4,000 resumes, what, what are your options? I mean, you’re not going to read all 4,000. I heard of a situation where I feel like they would just randomly pick 15 resumes from the pile and they would just, they would just pick, they would just start with some and if they could get some good enough candidates, from picking 20 or 30 resumes from the pile and they had 5 people in the candidate pool, they just moved on. They never looked at the other ones.

**Tammi:** Right.

**John:** Why would they? Right. Yeah.

**Tammi:** Yes, yes. And, and I think to just help, you know, in terms of like the career coaching context, is if somebody hasn’t been experiencing a lot of job satisfaction and fulfillment in in the last 5 years, or maybe it’s been longer, that’s something to really explore with a coach. And, you know, it’s to start to refine, given where somebody’s at in their life today, maybe their priority has changed. And so this next chapter of their career, they want to be more intentional about what they step into next.

**John:** Yeah. So if people wanted to get some career coaching or some career guidance from you and your partner, where would they go?

**Tammi:** They can visit me on my LinkedIn page on Tammi Scott, and I’m in Washington State.

**John:** Okay, we’ll link to it.

**Tammi:** And I will soon have our website— we’ll have our website up pretty soon. We’re, we’re working on that slowly but surely. And but for now, LinkedIn page works great. Yeah.

**John:** And I also volunteer Tammi, if you’re wanting to send that newsletter email to your friends to get your network warmed up and all that stuff, and you just can’t get off the dime to do it. I’m sure Tammi would be glad to have a coaching conversation with you. As would I. If again, the whole self-exploration You have no idea what you might find. You might think, oh, I’m a procrastinator. I’m the type of person that can’t focus. It’s always usually something else. So we could kind of zero in on that and help you to send that email. So that’d be fun.

**Tammi:** I’ll make a little plug for Steve Chandler’s new book because I just ordered it and I listened to a podcast of talking about, it’s all about systems. And I’m super excited because the procrastination piece is like, well, that’s just another system. And I, I, I’m guilty of that. It’s like I have operated in the procrastination system and it hasn’t worked very well for me. And so I’m really excited to read his book. And to— so it’s like, okay, it’s time to create a new system that, that works in what I’m up to right now.

**John:** It’s so funny you mentioned that because I was listening to a podcast with Trevor and Steve Chandler just before this, and Yes, it is. It’s so simple. And I’ve also been doing some of it in my coaching because my coach works with Steve Chandler. So I think I’ve been getting stuff via her related to this. It’s been a game changer. And Steve was saying something like, yes, I learned that my memory is a terrible system. Trying to remember things is a terrible system.

**Tammi:** Right?

**John:** So yeah, it was— and the whole— oh yeah, that could be on a whole nother conversation. But yeah, it’s all about depersonalizing everything. Yes, it’s, it’s not personal, it’s just the system. And do you have a system that works or not?

**Tammi:** Yes. Yeah, I look forward to incorporating that more into my work with my clients, for sure.

**John:** Thanks for listening to The John Poelstra Show. Notes, links, and all that other good stuff for this episode are at johnpoelstra.com/podcast. Send your questions, ideas, or a simple hello to REDACTED. Want to stay up to date on new episodes and receive notifications of upcoming events? Register your email address at johnpoelstra.com/updates.

The post 131: Career Coaching Isn’t a Crystal Ball with Tammi Scott appeared first on John Poelstra.

Katherine Krupka shares her unconventional journey from the Russian Embassy to energy healing.

She’s an energy healer, interfaith minister, coach and Executive Director of the Energy Medicine Professional Association.

Our conversation reveals Katherine’s fascinating background, including her adventures working at the embassy in Moscow during the fall of the Berlin Wall, her involvement in privatization efforts with the World Bank and consulting projects with oligarchs in Russia.

Katherine shares how her rock bottom moments led her to exploration of raw food, naturopathy, yoga, and meditation. She provides insights into how how healing works and how she helps clients. As a life-long learner, she’s presently focused on a deep study of human consciousness.

All songs licensed under Creative Commons

## Transcript

*This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.*

**John:** Alright. Today I’m talking to Katherine Krupka. We met at a conference in 2018. It was Rick Tamlyn’s Bigger Game Conference, I believe. And there are so many things about Katherine that are fascinating to me that we— I don’t even know where to start. So. Thanks for joining me today, Catherine.

**Katherine:** It’s a pleasure. I’m really excited.

**John:** When we met in 2018, it was— I can still remember it. We were standing in the little like dessert area of this happy hour thing, and I had forced myself— I always force myself to go to those things for 15, 20 minutes. I have to show up and meet whoever’s there, and then I can go back to my room and do my thing.

**Katherine:** I’m the same way. So it was meant to be.

**John:** And so it was Catherine and this other lady named Lisa. I don’t know. I can see her last name in my mind, but I don’t know how to say it. Did you know her before or did you?

**Katherine:** No.

**John:** Okay. So we’re standing there. Somehow we get to talking about stuff and Catherine starts talking about her energy work. And I’m like, whoa, I don’t know what this energy stuff is. This is kind of— she’s talking about like clearing this space where she shares with this other practitioner. And I’m like, oh, this is even weirder, but okay. And then somehow we started talking about meditation and it was hilarious that you’re my first meditation teacher. So, so, so, so you and Lisa were talking about meditation and I’m like, okay, well, I’m open to trying this. What would I, what would I do? And it was so, I still remember it. You were standing there and you’re like, you’re like, okay, let me sense into this. And you’re like, Okay. 8 minutes. I think 8 minutes would be— I was like, wow, this lady is like, I don’t know what she’s tuned into, but she’s like connected to something here. She’s like, 8 minutes. I think 8 minutes. Yeah. I’m like, what about 10? You’re like, well, 10 would be better, but 8. I think you said 2 times a day. And I don’t know, the rest was history. I ended up doing it for, I don’t know, some unbroken streak of time. So. That’s like the longest intro ever as to how I met you. But tell people, who’s Catherine? What’s Catherine up to in the world?

**Katherine:** Well, that’s a tough question. I do work with people doing a variety of what might be called energy work and coaching together. And I always sort of joke that there are 3 of us in the session. There’s me, there’s the client, and there’s their highest wisdom, their all-knowing self. And one of the things we really do in our work together is go through all the stuff we get to do to really get them a nice solid connection to that higher wisdom. And And, you know, I’ll play with it also and help them really live from there, right? Where, you know, the normal thinking stuff and all the stuff we do is, of course, always there. But to get greater access, greater, a greater sense of identification and therefore like default mode, right? At that wiser, higher, whatever word you want to use, level, that point of access. And And then we’re creating from there, right? And, you know, I actually hit— I come from the corporate world and diplomacy and the corporate world. And, you know, I got into all this stuff for my own healing, honestly, right? I, you know, hit rock bottom myself, which is how most people get into this kind of work, right? Is we have our own crisis. And And so I, I really sort of hid it, you know, it’s like, oh, look, I’m just an executive coach. Oh, look, I’m a naturopath. Oh, look, I’m, you know, I, oh yeah, I teach some yoga. Oh yeah, I, you know, do some meditation, but I really, I kept it hidden for a very long time. I mean, I still do, honestly, actually, just to be completely, completely honest. Not anymore. I still, right? I’m sort of coming out as woo here on this podcast and Because I, you know, it’s easy to think, oh, you know, all these people in my previous world, all the, you know, business executives, the government leaders, all these sort of people would think I’m just a nutcase, right? I would not be taken seriously. I couldn’t get a meeting with anybody. No one would want to speak to me. But what I’m finding, partly on my own, but even more through other people, a woman I know does intuition training and she’s She’s working with CEOs. She’s like out there. And I think people are getting that this is like a new cutting edge, right? Like in the ’80s it was exercise and you’ll, you’ll do better, you’ll perform better in your work. Remember that, right? It was just sort of coming into conscious, like exercise would actually help your business or help your performance. And then it was like, oh, if you eat the right foods, oh, if you do this, if you do this. And I think we’re at the point finally where people are recognizing that that next frontier, I don’t know if you want to call it that, is the inner. You know, it’s the inner stuff that we, that we get to play with and the vast resources that exist for us, um, when we tap deeper internally rather than looking externally.

**John:** Now you’re also an interfaith minister, is that right?

**Katherine:** Yes, I am.

**John:** And you also run a couple of associations. So what else, what else do you do that we don’t know about?

**Katherine:** So I get bored easily, which is why I like to keep different parts of my brain active and different parts of my system engaged in, in different things. I still keep a wee little toe in international consulting, business consulting work. Uh, I do run a professional association for healers and coaches, and I am an interfaith minister, but I, I mean, I’ll do ceremonies, but that isn’t my focus. My focus with that really is as we are tuning deeper internally, for a lot of people that touches on the spiritual and can either bump up against old religious systems, right? The, you know, birth religion of origin type situation against which a lot of people have rebelled at some point in their lives or been injured in some way through their lives. So there’s a lot of repair, uh, and healing that gets to go on there in order for someone to access deeper spiritual potentials, clearer spirituality, not connected to religion necessarily, but that gets to happen in order for them to move forward spiritually. Or people recognize that they’re on a spiritual path And it can be very helpful to bring in some of their own tradition into our exploration or into the practices that we might use for them. When I was in seminary, actually, it was very interesting because I was raised Catholic and like many rebelled completely and even was researching how do I get— how can I leave the church? And I realized the only way you can leave is to join another church, which I had no interest in doing, or to be excommunicated, which is not not easy to do. It’s not, it’s not easy to be excommunicated. So I thought, well, you know, I, I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t actually leave, which is kind of interesting, right? But if you’re, if you’re raised in something, and the Catholic Church is a perfect example because they’re so focused on ritual and, uh, you know, indoctrination and all of that, they’ve really got that down. If you wanted to learn how to do that, they’d be a great case study, actually. Uh, so I, you know, I rebelled, I left, as many people do. And in seminary, someone was talking, one of our, our teachers, uh, was talking about how there’s a great benefit in returning to your faith of origin. And we all just bristled, right? I mean, if you’re going to become an interfaith minister, you’re doing it because you’re not interested in any specific church or not, especially not the one you grew up in, right? Church or tradition, right? I mean, we have people of all faiths who were there. So, uh, so I really, I bristled, but then, but I also got it because that is already, it’s, it’s in there, you know, it’s in our muscle memory. You can say it’s in our DNA. It certainly is in our collective, uh, memory and those patterns that our system is working with. Uh, it’s, you know, it’s our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, et cetera, et cetera. And it’s the culture. And if you grew up in a community of faith, then it’s just in the water that you were drinking. So no matter what the faith is, there is a benefit to going back to it and looking at it with fresh eyes. For me, that meant, you know, I don’t, I’m not interested in the institution of the church, but the teachings of the mystics are pretty amazing. I mean, there’s a lot there, right? And the early teachings of the faith are very, very powerful. And I don’t, I still don’t consider myself Catholic, but there’s an awful lot of richness there, right? If you, when you, uh, after you, I don’t want to say, I don’t know, I’m going to say mature, but I don’t really like that word. You go beyond the place where it’s like, I’ve got to throw everything out. I have to completely rebel. There’s nothing of any value here to like, oh wait, this is really cool. I, I don’t need to interact with this, or I want to still protest against this, or whatever the case might be, but this has value. So we can go back to that piece of value. And I help a good number of people access that with their faith or bringing in, you know, new faiths. I was really introduced to the Vedic path when I first began my own spiritual whatever you want to call it, path seeking, quest, whatever word you want to use. And, and there was so much richness in that and interesting ways that, um, that, that marries or underpins, I mean, really at their base, the fundamental teachings of all of the big faiths are pretty much the same. They come at it in different ways. Some have more color, some have more rituals, some have more, you know, whatever. Some make you kneel, some don’t, whatever. Like, they’ve got their little differences there, but the principles and the, the fundamentals and even the deep practices, right? The more mystic practices are, are pretty much the same.

**John:** So I just, oh, that’s so beautiful. So Catherine and I coached together, and as me as the coach, I was always focused on what’s present here, where are we going, what’s here now informs what’s next. I think of all the people I’ve ever met with, you had the most— I don’t want to call them throwaway, but they were always like, oh my gosh, I’d like to spend an hour knowing about that. So here are some of the things that I remember. We were at the embassy throwing darts at— I think it was in Russia, deciding where we were going to go for the weekend. I’m like, what was she doing? And then there was, oh yeah, I’m sorry not to get back to you. I’m going to DC for the last rocket launch. And then something about trained in firearms. When I was managing director of— and I never did know what you were managing director of. Can you start us a little bit at the beginning? So like, what do you study in college? Like, where— how does this all come together?

**Katherine:** Yeah. So I was very interested in things international. Right. And travel and exotic places and things like this. And I went to high school actually in Houston, which was actually moving from Chicago. It did feel a bit exotic, but not in a way that I appreciated at the time. On— it was— this is actually quite funny. I was on the debate team and there was a woman on the squad who was— there’s always like an instigator, right? You’ve always got an instigator in a group. And she was our instigator. She was amazing. I love her. And she got her hands on a Russian-English dictionary, like of swear words or something. I mean, something just so convoluted, right? So we sat around and taught ourselves all these foul words in Russian in high school. This is mid-’80s in Houston. And then of course we’d go to debate tournaments and we’d toss these words around just to psych the other teams out and say like, like debaters do, right? And so we thought we were really cool. As it turns out, by the way, no one really uses those words. They use them in very different and much more colorful ways. But we thought we were really cool. So then I got to university, and I need a language. I’ve studied French already. I live in Texas. Why would you pay money to learn Spanish? And so I took Russian because it was interesting. And it’s the mid-’80s, right? It’s Gorbachev coming to power. It’s Glasnost. It’s, you know, Perestroika, all of these things. things coming up. I mean, this is like the coolest thing in the world at the time. So I was really excited and my international studies program basically turned into a Soviet studies program. And I studied the language. I also ended up studying archaeology, Mesoamerican archaeology along the way, which is where I thought I was going to go. I thought that was going to become my trajectory for the future. But an opportunity came up to apply to work at the embassy in Moscow. And that was, I mean, it was the be-all end-all, right? I was so excited. And it’s interesting because there were several of us who said we were going to do it. So like, we’ll go as a band, right? We’ll do this together. And I’m the only one who actually completed the application process. And, uh, which was lengthy because you needed a top secret clearance, you needed

**John:** This is straight out of college.

**Katherine:** Straight out of college. And so I went straight out of college.

**John:** To Russia.

**Katherine:** To the Soviet Union then. Yeah. It was ’89. And, uh, and, and there I was. It was extraordinary. It was amazing. Everything was, I mean, the Berlin Wall was coming down, like, like everything. It was so amazing and so fascinating and so So alive and, and such an extraordinary opportunity in so many ways. I mean, the number— there aren’t, there aren’t words to describe the adventures that we had or the experiences that we were able to have that you never would, or even professionally a few years later, the opportunities that I had that, you know, you’d need to be in your 40s or 50s to be able to do here. But because we happened to be there and we knew certain things. You know, we had, we were put in charge of stuff at an age far earlier than one would ever expect. So it was really, and that’s, that’s where the throwing darts at the map, uh, at the, at the Marine Bar at the embassy. Um, we, we could fly for Soviet prices. So it would, I mean, it costs nothing to go places. So literally we would, we would blindfold ourselves and throw a dart at the map and see where we might go for the weekend. Uh, or one time we picked a trip, uh, a couple of friends and I, there was a city called Yaya, which was just interesting grammatically because if you go there with a preposition, it’s V-Y-A-U. We are in V-Y-A-Y-E, right? So it’s, it’s, and it’s just interesting grammatically. So we thought, well, that’d be fun. Let’s go to Yaya. For a grammatical field trip. So when we had those, yeah, we just had those opportunities and many others. Women didn’t tend to drive then there. And I don’t know if I should say this. So I had the opportunity—

**John:** And Upon further reflection, Catherine asked me to remove the section that came after this, so we did. Back to the conversation.

**Katherine:** You would also get very special treatment going in and out of the Kremlin. We’d trade little gifts with the guards at the Kremlin, little chocolates, little, you know, packs of cigarettes or little things like that. Yeah, I mean, nothing, you know, untoward, nothing, uh, any kind of security risk or anything like that, but just fun little things that were just that were, you know, extraordinary experiences to like zoom. You come up this hill and then you go down into the Kremlin and you go vroom around. It’s like you’re flying into this magnificent structure. I don’t know. It’s an extraordinary experience. So yeah, so lots of fun with that.

**John:** How many years were you there?

**Katherine:** At the embassy, 2 and a half, maybe 3 years. And then I joined a part of the World Bank called the IFC, the International Finance Corporation, which is their for-profit arm, and they were doing privatization at the provincial and municipal levels, um, in the country, which was voluntary. So basically we were flying around pitching this idea of privatizing your trucking fleets and your retail stores and things like this to governors and, and mayors. And again, I mean, we’re 20-somethings, you know, um, running around and doing this, and it’s never been done before. This had never been done before in the world. Wow. This was a whole new way of doing this. It was a scale that had never been even conceived before this. And here we are, you know, running around and doing these amazing things. And it was an extraordinary experience also. So then, you know, did that same kind of thing in different countries, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, in Ukraine, in Kyiv some, but mostly in Odessa and Nikolaev. Of some of the most beautiful cities, uh, around, sadly. Uh, and so did that for many years and then, you know, uh, went back to the States for the— by then I’m working with a private company, uh, who’s a little piece of— it’s a global consulting company and their little piece of their business is doing this kind of stuff. So then I got to work in a bunch of different countries through Eastern Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, did work in Pakistan. Bosnia-Herzegovina right at the end of the war, helping complete the last little bit of the Dayton Accords and these amazing, you know, amazing things. And then I got sent back to Russia to run the operations for that company in Russia. So, uh, so we had multiple offices, a couple hundred people, and we were working for, uh, the oligarchs, one in particular. And

**John:** What does it mean that you’re working for the oligarchs?

**Katherine:** So one of the oligarchs was our client. He ran a very big company, uh, that became bigger and bigger and bigger. I mean, it’s actually funny because what I do now in some ways is actually— people think it’s like night and day from what I used to do, and it isn’t really.

**John:** How so?

**Katherine:** There’s a really clear line, a really clear line, because a lot of what we were doing there was— I didn’t know it at the time myself, right? But you’re operating from a higher vision. So here’s this guy who everybody thought looked like a thug, sounded like a, you know, thug, to use a polite word. You know, and everyone thought he can’t. I mean, he’ll never be able to borrow money on the international markets. He’ll never be able to merge. And, you know, it’s— I mean, they came out of nowhere, right? This all happened so fast. These people became became hundred millionaires and in some cases billionaires in a matter of, I mean, no time.

**John:** So you were helping them become legit? Like legit in the world?

**Katherine:** Yes.

**John:** Versus like helping them do evil things?

**Katherine:** No, become legit in the world, right? So we, like, we worked with this guy to become legit in the world, right? And he, he became a darling of the West. Really, he did. And I mean, very smart man, obviously very capable and cleaner than most oligarchs. And, um, you know, and still out there fighting the good fight, by the way. Like he’s really, he’s still out there fighting the good fight, which I give him tremendous credit for. And helping build these companies and create international, you know, uh, partnerships and capital lines and things like this. So doing that, and then Western companies selling chocolate bars and things like that in Russia. And more World Bank kind of things like revising, like helping develop a commercial legal system and helping develop an education program around commercial law and helping even just introduce the idea of private ownership and why this is good and what’s possible and, and all of this. So a lot of really huge public education, public communication work on a grand scale.

**John:** All because you learned to say curse words in Russian in high school.

**Katherine:** In high school debate, yes. Right? I know, it’s crazy. I think about the number of, of little things that had to occur And the number of little choice points that played. But if I trace it back to the very beginning, that’s the beginning of it.

**John:** What, what do you think was your— what’s your, I don’t know, secret sauce? Or like, what is, what is it that keeps— like, it sounds like something just kept kind of pulling you forward. You’re saying yes, obviously, but you also have some knack, I think. Like, how did you find this job to work for the ambassador? That seems like kind of a big deal.

**Katherine:** I didn’t work for the ambassador, right? I was at the— I heard about the opportunity to apply to work there. I heard about through a friend in Russian class.

**John:** Okay.

**Katherine:** Who didn’t end up applying. He was just the transmitter of the opportunity.

**John:** And you took it.

**Katherine:** I leapt at it. I leapt at it. And yeah, so I mean, I did all kinds of work there. So it was, you know, I mean, mostly it was you know, entry-level grunt work kind of things in a lot of ways. But, you know, I got to go to all these receptions, meet these great artists, meet these famous poets, and these amazing things, you know, occurred. And things were just possible, you know, they were possible there. And at that time, and if you jumped at things, there was no limit. I know people who went over when I did who literally are multi, multi, multi-millionaires retired off on, you know, totally different, like, like they just, they did it. They went all in, cashed out, did their thing. And I, you know, I didn’t do, I didn’t go that route. Right.

**John:** What did you do instead?

**Katherine:** I, you know, well, honestly, instead at the end, I mean, I loved what I was doing. I loved it. I loved every minute of it except like at the very end. And it was very, it was heavy, right? This is, A period, late ’90s, early 2000s, things were just crazy there. I mean, really crazy, really crazy, lawless, Wild East, you know, type stuff. And, and, you know, it was a very intense lifestyle, right? You’re working 24/7, you’re on call all the time. You’re being listened to not just by the government, but by your clients and by your clients’ competitors. Pretty much all the time. Like we would just laugh. Like, if you don’t want it on the 6 o’clock news, don’t say it.

**John:** So even in a private—

**Katherine:** No, just, yeah. And especially, you know, over the phone or anything like that. But even in private, I mean, there was a, we were switching from one client, uh, working with one client to working with their competitor, doing it all totally above board by the contract. We were completely legit in how we were doing everything. But all of a sudden, my driver who used to be a typesetter at Pravda, Nice guy, not a rocket scientist, right? He starts asking me, this is in the oil sector. He starts asking me all these questions about exploration and, you know, oil prices and, you know, international. I’m like, if Victor, why, why is Victor, right? This isn’t his thing.

**John:** He’s changing careers.

**Katherine:** So, I mean, you know, these things happen. Someone hires your driver to to, to report on you. So I was meeting up with someone from this other company, uh, and we would meet, you know, not at anyone’s office or anything like that. We would meet, you know, at a restaurant or a cafe or something like this. But we got to the point where we had this whole elaborate thing where he would get dropped off, send his driver away. I would get dropped off, send my driver to go run errands for me. And then he would get picked up separately. I would get picked up separately. Mm-hmm. So just all—

**John:** it’s like a movie.

**Katherine:** But of course everybody knew everything anyway, because every, I mean, everything, everything you were watched so carefully. It was hilarious. Hilarious. One, actually my favorite story on that, we were doing a contract negotiation with an organization and, uh, it was very tense. They didn’t like us. They didn’t really want to do this. They were kind of being forced to do this, this project. And I got so frustrated. I mean, I was so frustrated. This was taking forever. It was so intense. They were just intransigent on all these like niggling points that meant nothing, right? They were just being obstinate. And I got home one night and I was on the phone with a colleague, my boss actually in the States. And I, you know better, but every now and then you just slip. And I slipped and I said, if he weren’t such a blah, blah, blah. And as soon as I said it, I thought, oh. But, you know, but then we move on, right? Move on. The conversation goes on. 2 days later, I go and sit down. He comes in with his, you know, I’ve got my little crew of people. He’s got his little crew of people, right? We sit across from each other at these big, long official tables with— it’s all— the Russians love all this sort of, you know, pomp and circumstance kind of stuff. So we’re sitting there and he, we were getting to, you know, I don’t know, the first point or whatever. And he, he says, well, if I wasn’t such a blah, blah, blah, and verbatim, except in Russian, quotes what I said to my colleague.

**John:** Now, did they know that you knew Russian and they could understand him?

**Katherine:** Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, but you always, you work through an interpreter anyway, because it gives you more time, uh, to process things and because you don’t want to ever make a mistake. So even if you speak the language, it’s better to work with an interpreter for things like that. So anyway, so, so he said that. And then I’m sitting there thinking, what do I do now? Right? Because you can’t, you can’t lose. So I can’t show him any kind of reaction. I can’t show that I’m, you know, shocked or thrown off balance. So I just took a deep breath, took a sip of water, and I said, well, now that we’ve got that settled, let’s move on.

**John:** Oh, was your life ever in danger?

**Katherine:** Next question.

**John:** Okay. So how does this all come to an end?

**Katherine:** It comes to an end with me, uh, honestly suicidally depressed. And part of it, just the density of everything, uh, around. It was a very dark, dense time. And, and part of it, honestly, your body can only do that kind of stuff for so long. You know, it’s, uh, it’s a, it’s, you know, I lived on, I lived on junky food, uh, caffeine, you know, sugar, alcohol, of course, you know, that’s the way things were. And—

**John:** How many years from the time that you—

**Katherine:** Like 10, basically.

**John:** And how many different countries in those 10 years?

**Katherine:** Mostly Russia, but living, uh, 1, 2, 3, 4, maybe 5, um, but mostly 10 years in— 10 years basically in Russia.

**John:** But then you mentioned all those other countries.

**Katherine:** Russia and former Soviets. So Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan. That was 10 years. And then some other countries in other periods. Yeah, so it was very— it was difficult on the, on the system. So depression, uh, took hold. And, uh, and that was, that was the transition point. So I was able to leave, um, eventually, and it was not easy to find someone to fill that role. Uh, but I was able to leave eventually. And, and while I was there, maybe 6 months or so before I left, a colleague brought me a book, uh, by a fellow named Gabriel Cousins called Depression Free for Life. And he was all, I’d asked for other books and he, he said it jumped off the shelf at him. And of course he’s like the person who that never happens to, right? He’s not that person. So when he brought it to me, I, he said, I hope you’re not offended. I hope this isn’t upsetting because no one knew how, uh, what a difficult situation I was in. I was very good at hiding it. Very good. I read the whole thing in one night, of course, like with an entire bottle of wine and probably a pack of cigarettes. But, but I, but I read the whole thing in one night. And it was all about raw foods and depression. And I thought, wow, there must be something to this. And I thought, I want to go here when I get to the States. So I did. Literally, I flew through Houston, dropped my cat off at my parents’ house, and went straight to his place in Arizona. And, and there I learned to meditate.

**John:** This seems like a hard left turn considering the lifestyle that you’ve been—

**Katherine:** talk about a left turn in 24 hours. I became a raw food vegan. No alcohol, no caffeine, no stimulants, no sugar. Uh, obviously no cigarettes, no, no nothing, no nothing. Like, poof, done. Like a, like an off switch or an on switch perhaps.

**John:** What did that do to your body?

**Katherine:** Um, I think my body was actually quite grateful.

**John:** It was like, thank you, finally.

**Katherine:** I think rather than like you could think someone could have a big detox reaction or something like that, I think mine was so exhausted. and so worn out and so grateful. It just said, ah, finally. So I learned yoga, I learned meditation, I learned raw food lifestyle. I learned all these things. And this is on a magnificent sacred piece of land. And Gabriel Cousins himself is both a doctor and a rabbi and a deep spiritual teacher in both the, in the Jewish tradition and in the Vedic

**John:** What a combo,

**Katherine:** right? I know it is an interesting combo. And so was, was my perfect, was my perfect teacher, um, at that stage. So I’d stay there, I don’t know how many weeks, 4 weeks, and then I went to Manhattan where I was working at the same company, but it headquarters in Manhattan.

**John:** So you took 4 weeks off, you hadn’t officially left.

**Katherine:** I didn’t leave the company, just left For a different position in the company. Yeah. So left there, took a, you know, whatever, leave or what have you. And, um, and did that and then came back and then went back out for a few more weeks. Um, the folks in Manhattan didn’t really know what to do with me. They sort of looked at me like I had 3 heads. Um, hey, who’s this woman? Where did she come from? Uh, not realizing that we, we do the same things just in far more difficult circumstances and in a Pretty complex language. And, uh, and with honestly higher stakes, higher stakes in some ways. So anyways, it was like a part-time job there. So I’m already like, I left, I left, this place was called the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center. And I left there saying, I’m going to become a naturopath. And Gabriel basically did what you just did there, right? He sort of chuckled. He was very kind about it, but, you know, all but patted me on the head and said, that’s nice. Not in a, in a rude or patronizing way, but like, In a, yeah, that’s not really how this is going to go kind of way.

**John:** I’m smiling and laughing in a way and thinking, and of course you did. That’s what I’m thinking.

**Katherine:** So I did. So I did. Um, because I wanted to understand it, right? I didn’t even want to practice. I just wanted to understand it and be able to share it with other people. Um, so I, it’s a classical, uh, training, not the more medical training that’s popular now. So did that and. That got me into, you know, it got me started with Reiki. It got me started with, you know, I don’t know, a bunch of different things. Got me started with yoga and a variety of things. And then a funny, I didn’t like being in New York. I didn’t, my, my, my clients, my big client projects in New York were Wyeth Pharmaceuticals while I’m doing my naturopathic training. Yeah, right. The Chevron Texaco merger and Philip Morris.

**John:** In coaching, we would call that a conflict of values.

**Katherine:** Precisely. Precisely. So I would take all this into my meditation. I become serious yoga person and serious meditator at this stage. These are, these are, these are cornerstones of my life at this point.

**John:** What does that look like? Like, are you meditating like 5 hours a day or like what?

**Katherine:** No, no, but we, but consistently and deeply. Every single day and doing yoga. There was a great yoga studio at 23rd and 3rd, um, Sri Dharma Mitra, who has become famous, but at the time he was just this awesome dude. And I’d be there almost every day, you know, uh, and, and did all the classes. And Manhattan is amazing like this, right? There’s the open center and then this center and then that center. There’s everything everywhere in Manhattan. It’s fabulous. So I, you know, I went to all the places, did all the things, studied with all the teachers, everything. So it was a very important part of my life. And I sort of kept asking the universe or whatever you might call it, you know, when can I leave? This is dreadful. I can’t, I can’t do this, right? This is a conflict of values. And the sense I kept getting, the message I kept getting was you need to understand this. You need to understand how these companies work from the inside. Okay. So I stuck with it. And then finally, this was hilarious. One day in meditation, I just heard, okay, you can leave now. Okay, you can leave now. And I thought, then suddenly I’m terrified. Like, oh my gosh, I can’t, I can’t do this. I don’t have another job. Where am I going to go? What am I going to do? Right? I’ve been asking for this for, I don’t know, 18 months. And now suddenly it feels like the right thing to do. And I’m terrified. And I’m not trusting it. So then I run around, I’m like, let me ask this coach, let me ask this intuitive, let me ask this astrologer, let me ask this, let me ask everybody else. But you know what was amazing, John, is I couldn’t get an appointment with people. Like we’d set something and then they’d cancel. I was up in DC or down in DC for a meeting and had a call set and literally the power went out at our office. Oh my God. In downtown D.C., like all the crazies happened, right? Everything happened to interfere with this. And finally it hit me, oh, I get to trust myself. Oh, I get to trust my own wisdom. I get to trust my own higher knowing. And that was my learning there. So then, so I thought, okay, well, I can leave. And then the next part of the sense was to go to the Anne Wigmore Institute in Puerto Rico. I have to believe I’d heard of it before, but I wasn’t aware of having heard of it before.

**John:** Well, then wait, then how did you hear about it?

**Katherine:** I must have heard about it. I don’t know, from somebody in Manhattan, I’m sure, right? From someone in the whole alternative world there. I must have. So I thought, well, I looked it up. It’s on the beach and it’s a raw food or living food healing center on the beach. I thought, well, that sounds good. Let’s do that. I’ll take a couple months sabbatical, right? Take 2 or 3 months, go hang out down there, uh, relax, get some sun, and, um, and decide what I want to do next. And, uh, and got there. And of course, then they offered me a job. So, so I did that and kept consulting, you know, kept some consulting going. But anyway, so I ended up there for 3 years, during which time I went to India and studied yoga and Ayurveda and also started my coaching training with CTI and then decided to go to Washington, right? I thought executive coaching practice, that’s where I’m going with this because it’s, it’s, it’s an extension. It’s a, it’s a next stage of what I’d been doing in the consulting world. And Uh, and I could bring in some of these other things that I’d already integrated. So I thought this will work great. And DC is a great place to do it. I knew folks in DC. I had a consulting gig that I could do part-time. So great. But then that didn’t happen at all. People really wanted healing work, not coaching. So, so I developed a healing practice.

**John:** When you say healing, I think some people listening to this are thinking of like, you know, Benny Hinn on TV, at least when I was growing up, and he would like smack people on the forehead and he would heal them, be healed. But what—

**Katherine:** I wish I could do that. Nope. Um, no. So this was a—

**John:** What does healing, what does it even mean?

**Katherine:** So this was a great mix of things. Like somebody would come and they’d, I mean, mostly people who came who’d been to 100 different doctors and practitioners and nothing was working, right? Those were the people who ended up at my, who ended up calling me. So it was a mix of classical naturopathic work, right? So diet, nutrition, herbs, all that kind of thing. Um, vibrational work, frequency healing, because I’d gotten into that by then.

**John:** What is that?

**Katherine:** If you are familiar with Rife and Rife frequencies, that’s one application of it. There are others. There’s an idea that everything has a frequency.

**John:** Okay.

**Katherine:** Right? An electrical frequency. And if you either apply a contrary frequency, right, an opposite frequency, in some cases that will cancel out the original one. So if you’ve got X and minus X, it becomes zero or whatever. I’m not good at math, so I might have said that wrong, but you get the idea.

**John:** I do, I do. And it’s an audio concept too. So yeah.

**Katherine:** Okay, well, perfect. Okay, so that, right? So it’ll cancel, it’ll cancel the other out. And there’s a, there’s a great deal of of empirical evidence of that occurring. Other ways to do that is if the system is quite low or depleted in its own energy, its vibration or frequency, which is not just metaphor, it really is literal. We are electromagnetic beings. Then if you work with the frequency, it will surpass the frequency at which other things can, can exist or can thrive. So there’s an idea that, let’s say, I don’t want to use the obvious one. I’ll get in trouble. So let’s say, I don’t know, bronchitis or something tends to live around whatever hertz, right? And then unhealthy body is 3x hertz. Then if you start bringing the system up to that, then this just doesn’t fit any longer, right? That condition that— and those are all, by the way, right? Disease names are just names we’ve given to a set Of experiences, they don’t exist within themselves. Right? Bronchitis is a name given to if someone has this, registers this, says this, da da da da da. Then we call it X. Right? So they aren’t a thing in and of themselves. They’re a name given to a set of experiences. Does that make sense? So so I don’t diagnose, treat, cure, heal, la la la. I’m not a medical doctor. Don’t practice any kind of thing. Right? not going to get any kind of trouble for any of this. But if you work with frequencies, the system is operating at a place where these other things just don’t fit so well any longer. And the same could be true for emotions. The same can be true for states of mind or states of being. So you can work with vibration, with frequency in ways, and people do this when they work with sound, like sound healing is an obvious application of frequency and vibration. There are other ways to do it as well, but that’s one So

**John:** in the bronchitis example, basically the bronchitis has nowhere for it to live anymore. It just disappears or it ceases to exist.

**Katherine:** It ceases to express.

**John:** Oh, ceases to express. That’s interesting.

**Katherine:** It isn’t a thing in itself, right? It isn’t a single thing. It’s an experience. It’s

**John:** a system

**Katherine:** or It’s an experience, right? Because it’s like, okay, I have, you know, I don’t know, an elevated temperature and I have a cough and there’s inflammation in the, you know, brachial plexus. It’s a combination of things. So if the system, which has innate healing power, right, it knows what its normal and healthful state is, if the conditions are right, It can do an awful lot on its own, right? It will manage that inflammation. It will, uh, if there’s a, you know, quote bug, if, if you want to, if there’s a quote bug, the system can then do something with it, right? Can either sequester it, can kill it, can what have you. So those things, the system is able to do what it does on its own. So we don’t even have to make the system do anything, right? To me, it feels kind of arrogant to think that we know exactly what needs to be done. But if we can restore the system to its own state of balance, to its vitality, it knows what to do. Not to say that I wouldn’t be really excited to go to a hospital if I get hit by a car or something, right? Don’t get me wrong. Like, there’s— I’m not anti-medicine by any stretch of the imagination.

**John:** You’ve lost one of your arms and you’re just like, let’s, let’s— I’m not

**Katherine:** going to, I’m not going to apply frequencies if I’ve, you know, lost an arm or I mean, I had a terrible car accident. myself one time. And I mean, modern medicine saved my life. So there’s no, you know, I don’t have anything against it. I think there’s a, there’s a, it’s a spectrum. And when we can keep the body at its fullest and most robust, vital, elevated state, not only is it able to manage a lot of its own healing, the root of which is wholeness, right? The root of that word healing is wholeness. But we are then open to other ways of expressing, right? I’m no longer in survival. Now I’m able to think bigger thoughts. I’m able to reflect on bigger picture ideas. I’m able to spend more, put more energy into connecting with whatever we call it, the divine, the all that is, with the luminous, with what have you. So we, it’s, it’s part of our bigger picture expression as well. So again, how all of this ties together.

**John:** Without obviously breaking confidentiality, but what, like, what are some of the most amazing, maybe you can’t, like, there’s no good explanation stuff that you’ve been involved with?

**Katherine:** Yeah, there are, there are a lot. And it’s interesting because I, I, um, those keep me humble and they keep me, they remind me that I’m not the doer in any of this.

**John:** Oh, what are you then?

**Katherine:** Right? I’m a facilitator. I can, I can be a conduit. I can be a wayshower. I can be a knowledge holder, whatever. But I’m, I don’t, you know, I don’t do any of this. There’s no, I, there’s, I could, there’s no way I couldn’t, I couldn’t imagine of it. Right? So a fun one was there was a lady, uh, who I’d been connected with. I forget who’d referred her. She was in Colorado or something. I was in DC at the time. We’re on the phone. Maybe we’re on Skype. I think we’re on Skype. And she, we do, she comes about relationship stuff, right? And we’ve worked together for maybe 75 minutes, maybe 90 minutes. And lots of stuff moved, right? You can feel the energy moving. She’s releasing emotion. She’s recognizing, you know, patterns that she hadn’t been able to quite see before and feeling free of them. And she throws up her arms and says, oh my God, I’m so happy. Oh my God. Oh my gosh, I feel so free. And then she shrieks. And then I think, oh my gosh, what happened? Right? Something terrible. And she said, my shoulder, my shoulder, it’s been frozen for years. Her shoulder unfroze. Why? Because the same things that were holding that relationship pattern in place were holding the shoulder in place. And heaven knows what else, right?

**John:** So what? So what are you— I’m so curious because— so my context for this is I occasionally see someone that does like a combination of mudras to kind of, what is my body saying? Yeah. And then will place her hands in different ways. Like sometimes she’ll place her hand, like one hand over my heart and another hand on my back. And all of a sudden, like I’m taking these huge deep breaths. All of a sudden, I’m just like, oh, like I’m like so relaxed. And that night, I sleep like a baby. And all she did, quote, all she did was put her hands in these different places. So, but you’re not even meeting with this person in person. You’re on the phone. So, like what is going on? And again, I’m putting all this in the context of someone that like was in Russia and doing all this. stuff that has nothing to do with, I guess you would call this spirituality or energy. Like, yeah, I’m— how do you put all this together?

**Katherine:** Well, I mean, I will say I, I’ve really reached the point— I used to find them very separate. And, and I’ve gotten to a point where I recognize that, or I recognize isn’t even the right word. I’m now having the experience of everything being one thing. everything being one thing, that there, there isn’t spiritual and mundane. There isn’t, you know, good and bad. There isn’t healthy and not. There isn’t like a lot of the duality stuff falls away and the idea that something is spiritual and something is not spiritual. And even spiritual is kind of a funky word, right? We, we’ve got a lot of baggage on that word. So. Spiritual is kind of difficult, right? Because a lot of people will react to that. So even that is challenging. I don’t have a better word. You know, it’s the non-physical, it’s the non-apparent, it’s the subtle, it’s the, you know, biofield for the body or what have you. So I think it all comes together because all those things are there. And, you know, it’s been fun. I work with so many people who are in the business world or who are in you know, the mainstream sphere and rather accomplished, we’ll say, uh, in many cases. And it’s, it’s the same thing that moves everything, right? It’s the, the, the, the motivating, the moving, the energy of creation is the same no matter what, whether we’re talking about running a company or running an ashram, whether we’re talking about meditating or whether we’re talking about walking into a high-level meeting. It’s the same thing. It’s the same creative force expressing in all of it, right? Does that make sense?

**John:** Yeah, my head’s kind of about to explode. Okay. Yeah, I get it. I, I get it on a certain level. On another level, I’m like, oh yeah, this kind of coalesces different things I’ve been reading and swimming in and like But like, whoa. Yeah.

**Katherine:** So then it really isn’t even different.

**John:** So what are you doing? Where— I want to know if— I want to know, like, so this person that’s working on me, like, what is she doing? I’m almost wanting to say, how is she doing it? But I’m guessing she would have similar answers that you do, which is that she’s not doing any— she’s not doing something. She’s participating.

**Katherine:** Participating, or she’s a conduit. And I mean, of course, I can’t speak for her. But, but I imagine what she might say, or what I would say if someone asked me what I do when I either am doing something distance or when I used to see people in person, which I still do sometimes. We’re participating in a flow of, quote, energy, which even, even that’s not technically the right word. But we’re, it’s what everybody uses. So we’re gonna go with it, right? We’re participating in a flow of energy or of, I even think of them as like patterns of light and information because energy technically, that’s like a, you know, an engineering term and it means something specific, but we’re participating in that flow of consciousness. We’re participating in that flow of creative force, right? And if you might have a nugget of space in your back where something might be tight, a muscle or a fascia or something, or you’re holding an emotion or you’re holding stress or something, Then if I’m opening to us, to whatever’s wanting to come through, and your system is open to whatever’s wanting to change, then, then that occurs, right? That occurs. She holds a space. She’s attuned, right? Kind of like a tuning fork, very possibly, not always, but when you say she’s holding a mudra, then that would indicate to me that she’s probably attuning to something.

**John:** In this case, I’m holding— she’s putting my fingers into all these mudras and then checking in. Okay, and you’re attuning.

**Katherine:** She’s attuning you.

**John:** Yes.

**Katherine:** She’s helping you tune into something.

**John:** Yes, this whole idea of like, what are you telling us? What needs to be said here? And sometimes I’m like, wow, that’s okay. Like, I don’t get it. And other times I’m like, oh, okay. That makes a lot of sense.

**Katherine:** Yes. Right? Yes. And I mean, that’s another way of doing the same kind of thing I’ve been talking about, which is connecting with someone’s higher wisdom and helping them operate from there. So you are getting information. What is your body wanting? What is your system wanting? Right? And then that will come through. It’s this particular application of it. You’re on a table, your body is relaxed, but also you’re energy is clear and your mind is clearly relaxed, right? You’re in a different brainwave state, et cetera, et cetera. So, but you’re, you’re saying your wisdom is guiding that, right? You’re like, oh, this wants to be said. This wants to be expressed. This wants to be released.

**John:** Yeah. Yeah.

**Katherine:** So she’s helping you tune into your higher awareness and to bring that through in a physical sense.

**John:** Mm-hmm. And in a sense, we call that healing. Is that—

**Katherine:** We absolutely do.

**John:** That’s so interesting because I don’t think of going to see her to get healed. I think of going there to have like something— like so often I’ll just be like, something feels really blocked. The more— I mean, since I met you like in 2018, like I’ve been on this huge journey of making the path from my head down to my heart to even— there’s a whole thing around the— people are gonna like, whoa, you’ve lost it, John. The pelvic bowl.

**Katherine:** Yeah.

**John:** Supposedly that is like— Philip Shepherd has a whole thing like that. He thinks that like that’s where the, the deepest intelligence of the body is, of the body, the cell. And now we’re really getting out there. But so more and more I have— yes, I will just— things will just feel blocked or janky or whatever. And I don’t go see her on a regular basis, but I’ll just be like there’s like this fist-shaped thing in my heart or my— just— and I went to go see her because I was having this like really kind of serious health stuff that nobody could understand where it came from or what was going on. And I was reading The Body Keeps the Score and it’s like stored trauma. I don’t think I have any trauma. I had a normal childhood, not that anyone does. And And I met with this one person and they’re like, you know, you should just meet with someone in person that could maybe like feel into your body and see what’s going on. And so I met with her and what was so funny was I had started coaching and I was, I could feel, I started listening from my heart instead of my head.

**Katherine:** Mm-hmm.

**John:** And so I had like this, like one-foot space between like my chin and my heart that I was like listening from. And I was like, whoa. I would go to the airport after my coaching training and like, I was like just sending people love and feeling all this stuff. Like, whoa, what is going on? Well, when I started meeting with this lady, I didn’t— people in the coaching class would drive me crazy. People like, where do you feel this in your body? And they’d be like, oh, I’m feeling something in my knee, or feel your toes. And I’m like, I couldn’t feel any of that. Nothing. So I went and saw this lady the first time, and all of a sudden I was like, I can feel the tops of my legs. Like sitting here right in this moment, I can feel the tops of my legs. So then I went back. I’m like, Can you do some more stuff so I can like feel my feet? She’s like, well, yes, of course. So we like, we like worked our way all the way down to my toes. And then I was like, okay, now there’s something like to the top of my neck, bottom of my neck from up there. And we just— and now it’s become this kind of more and more evolved thing of, yeah, like I was saying, I feel something, something is stuck or something. And she’ll be like, alright, well, let’s just see what your body’s telling us today. And then she does her thing and she’s like, okay, so there’s a lot of anger. Is this making sense? I’m like, no, not really. And then she’d do some more like, how about this? And I’m like, okay, now yes. And then she’ll do her thing. Like I say, I lay there and all of a sudden I’m just super relaxed. I fall asleep. I do these huge exhales. I don’t know what’s good. So anyway, I don’t think of it as healing, but I guess in a way it is.

**Katherine:** I mean, healing is a difficult term. It could mean an awful lot of different things. And if you’re accustomed to thinking of it in a medical sense, then it wouldn’t feel so right, right? But if you’re looking at it from restoring wholeness to the system—

**John:** It’s totally doing that. Yes.

**Katherine:** Then that’s exactly what it’s like. It’s actually a perfect example.

**John:** So where is— what’s next for you? What’s the next thing that you’re interested in? Because I’m guessing that if it’s— if this is how it’s unfolded. You’re not like, well, I’m gonna retire now.

**Katherine:** No, no. I’m very interested in studying— this all sounds so preposterous even just to speak it. There’s the study of human consciousness, but the applied study, the experience of continued growth and evolution in consciousness, is very interesting to me for a number of reasons. I mean, A, there’s tremendous healing potential in it for people. There is— this is— I’m speaking things that I’ve only thought in my own head. I haven’t ever actually put into actual words. So I’m a little apprehensive. I’m feeling a little guarded. There’s also, I think, importance societally to, uh, to people accessing— I mean, you can say higher states of consciousness. You could also just say deeper states of consciousness, right? You can look at it either way. Uh, but I think those are very— I think it’s very important, um, and very valuable. I think there’s tremendous potential in it individually and collectively. And I think there’s a great— I think there’s a readiness now. among large numbers of people to look at things beyond, you know, just the physical table and the physical, you know, pen or what have you. And to understand that emotions are very powerful, to understand that there are collective ideas and emotions and waves that are also very powerful. And that it feeds in both ways, right? Those things external to me affect my system. My system affects what’s external to me. And it goes on and on. And if we can change where we are coming from, then we change what we’re putting out, we change what’s getting created, et cetera, et cetera. Right? It is, it is, I think, a strong leverage point. My goal has always been like, where can I get the greatest leverage in my work with people? Which is how I got into the energy in the first place, because naturopathic stuff seems slow. And I don’t, I don’t like slow. Like, let’s go. Let’s get it done. Let’s move. And so this feels like a point of great leverage. And I’ve been involved with a researcher. His name is Jeffrey A. Martin, and he’s an extraordinary person. And I’ve followed his work and been involved with some of his stuff the past few years and had my own experiences of the very different perspectives, the very different realities that can be depending on where we are in awareness or in consciousness. I know this is starting to sound really weird.

**John:** Can you define that actually? When you say consciousness, like what? I think everyone has a different, like, what does that mean?

**Katherine:** Right. So if we think about it in terms of, maybe let me think about this for a second. Awareness might almost be a better word, but I think he uses consciousness. He’s actually created a map from studies that he’s done all around the world. of locations in consciousness, which basically is where am I coming from, right? What state am I— from what state am I seeing the world? It’s not the same as like Spiral Dynamics or Ken Wilber’s integral work, but it’s also not totally different, right? Where we are, we experience and are at and move through different stages of maturity, if you will, in consciousness, or of expression in consciousness.

**John:** And when you say coming from— because I’m very much a layman and all this stuff— I think of, am I coming from a place of love? I’m gonna have a different outcome.

**Katherine:** Absolutely.

**John:** Someone doesn’t do what I think they should do at the store. If I’m coming from a place of anger, resentment, I’m going to be coming from, if I come from that energy, I’m going to have a certain interaction. If I come from a place of love, acceptance, something else, is that what we’re talking about?

**Katherine:** So yes. And so we’re talking about that for sure. Right. For sure. And there’s also, um, like if you look at spiral dynamics where, you know, there’s sort of the, there’s a level where I tend to be very self-focused. There’s a level where I tend to be a little broad, more broadly focused, another level. And levels are difficult because they aren’t, you know, these— they aren’t clearly defined boxes or anything like that. They’re very fluid, but we don’t have a better word, or I don’t have a better word anyway, than levels at this stage. So there’s a level where, you know, our awareness expands or our consciousness expands to really hold, you know, people and all the animals around us, right? Where it expands to hold the all that is, where it expands to hold where there’s not even a self from which to really look anymore, right? So we’re all, we’re talking at the level of, am I responding with anger? Am I responding with love? And we’re also at the level, also talking about these stages of, uh, where am I in this broader picture?

**John:** Okay, now my head’s about to explode again. It’s so good.

**Katherine:** So I find all of this really fascinating, and I find it— I find the applications of it very, very valuable. Because if I’m operating a business, so to speak, or if I’m operating a family, or if I’m operating anything, my car, but, but really, I mean, if I’m— if you’re thinking about a business, a country, right? A city. an organization, a collective of some sort, then where that is coming from makes a huge difference, both in how it expresses and how it engages with everything else, how it relates with everything else. So I think there’s great— I mean, I’m working at a very small scale. He’s doing things at a much higher level and much, you know, he’s out in academia doing all this. And I’m, you know, sitting at my little practice working with my dozens of clients or whatever and, you know, thinking, do we apply this in a way that makes the greatest difference for the organizations and families and lives and spiritual paths that people, that people are, are running and expressing in? And also really feeling, I mean, I remember in, in my coaching training way back, I don’t know, 2005 or something, we were told like, you know, what’s your purpose or mission statement or whatever like that, right? That we had to do. And I still remember mine, which is remarkable because I don’t remember anything that happened in the past really. But I was like, I’m the spark that like shocks the world alive or something like that. And it was really, but that’s consciousness, right? That’s awakening ourselves to a higher knowing, to our higher way of being out of the like, okay, you know, this is my house and here’s my job and here’s my table and here’s my car and here’s my children and here’s my whatever, to, to that there’s more, you know, not more in the sense of like, ooh, more stuff, but more. Yeah. More awareness, more possibility, more potential, more connection, more, you know, things that we don’t even have great words for at this stage. And if I’m operating from that place, my business decisions will be different, right? The choices I make when I’m at the grocery store and somebody, you know, does something or someone cuts me off in traffic, my choices are different then. and more generative, right? The more aware I am, the more expanded I am, my choices are more generative versus more constrictive.

**John:** Wow, there’s lots, lots here to ponder and be with. So if people wanted to be with you or be in contact with you, what’s the best way that they could do that?

**Katherine:** So the best way to do that, I am in the process of putting a new website up. Mine got hacked. And taken down. And so now I’m putting up a new one, which I think was just a little signal saying, come on, take down that website from 10 years ago. That’s ancient history. Let’s do something new. So, but I do have a contact form at katherinekrupka.com, and you can contact me that way. And yeah, through email, which is also accessible there through the baby site that’s there at the moment. Well, I put something proper up.

**John:** Any last thoughts, challenges, encouragements, anything you want to leave people with?

**Katherine:** Yeah, we’re in some wild times and, uh, things feel crazy and things feel charged and things feel electric and heavy and dense and scary, actually scary even. I think probably everyone is experiencing some level of consistent low-level trauma response in the nervous system. And to be really aware that your system is probably a little frazzled and that you are a little, oh, you know, on edge or in a, in a hypervigilant or sort of chronically aroused state, nervous system-wise. And I think if we know that and we just acknowledge that, it makes it easier for us to be gentle with ourselves, to be compassionate with others, the person at the grocery, like you said, or whatever it might be, or even on a bigger scale, right? All the wow going on on much bigger scales. To hold in compassion as well as in discernment. Both, right? Both can be, I can do both. I can hold in compassion and hold discernment at the same time. And, uh, and to hold compassion for oneself, right? And to do the things that, you know, will keep you centered, to allow you to drop deeper into your own system, into your own wisdom, into that inner knowing that everybody has. I help people access it and get, you know, crystal clear connections to it and everything like that. But we all have it. It doesn’t belong. It’s not restricted to certain people or anything like that. It’s there for everybody. And it’s always, it’s always there.

**John:** Thanks for listening to the John Poelstra show. Notes, links, and all that other good stuff for this episode are at johnpoelstra.com/podcast. Send your questions, ideas, or a simple hello to REDACTED. Want to stay up to date on new episodes and receive notifications of upcoming events? Register your email address at johnpoelstra.com/updates.

The post 130: Katherine Krupka’s Path from Diplomacy to Healing appeared first on John Poelstra.

Mark Rumbles reflects on his career of 40 years, what he’s learned in the leadership development space and what’s next for him.

Mark recently retired after 40 years in HR and leadership development. Mark and I discuss his career journey, the concept of retirement, and insights gained from his extensive experience developing leaders. This conversation touches on various topics, including mentorship, career planning, motivation, and the challenges of leadership development.

Mark shares his perspective on career transitions, emphasizing the importance of curiosity, relationship-building, and maintaining a flexible approach to one’s career path. He also discusses his current interests post-retirement, including exploring podcasting and working towards fostering more civil discourse in society. Throughout the conversation, Mark offers his insights on leadership, personal growth, and navigating career challenges.

## Related Episodes

– [How to Make Networking Humane (40)](https://johnpoelstra.com/humane-networking-040/) — making networking humane

All songs licensed under Creative Commons

## Transcript

*This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.*

**John:** Today, I’m talking to Mark Rumbles. Mark and I overlapped at Red Hat, and he was instrumental in introducing me to people in the wider coaching community at Red Hat, which was, I guess, sort of emerging at the time. Maybe we’ll get into that. Mark recently retired and we had the chance to catch up. And during that call, he asked me about podcasting, which is always a dangerous question because Usually when people ask me about podcasting, I say, well, why don’t we just do it? So it was a couple of days later when I was thinking about Mark and careers and retirement that I thought, oh, I got the perfect thing I want to talk to him about. So I asked him if he’d join me and he said he would. So, um, we’ll probably get into, well, I guess the thing that really caught my attention was, was a career and what is a career and all that kind of stuff. So we’ll get into that in a second. But anyway, thanks for joining me today, Mark.

**Mark:** My pleasure, John. I appreciate the invitation.

**John:** So who is Mark and what are you up to?

**Mark:** Wow. Let’s start with a real big open-ended question. I’ll try to simplify. I’m retired, as you mentioned. I spent about 40 years in the general HR community within my work. But for the vast majority of my time, I focused on leadership development by choice and by opportunity. That was the opportunity that kept coming to me, was to dive deep into that field of leadership development. I recently made the decision that I’d done enough at that point in time in terms of a regular paid job, retired effective May 1st, and have been enjoying the last, uh, 6 weeks of figuring out what it is to be a retiree, though I don’t love that word.

**John:** It’s fresh.

**Mark:** Talk about that. It’s fresh.

**John:** Let’s go there right away. What’s wrong with the word retiree?

**Mark:** Now, so let me just say this. Anybody who uses that, I don’t have a problem with that. I think for me, it’s the, it’s the idea That you’re leaving something and stopping. And I don’t feel like I ever want to stop. I would say I am in this seasonal transition from being a full-time employee, even though I was a part-time employee before I left. That’s a— that’s another subject. So my transition was actually 2 transitions, full-time to a part-time, and then And part-time to this retirement phase. So, I think that that’s where I’m coming from, that I never want to stop learning. That’s why when this invitation came from you, I jumped on it because I have something to learn and maybe people have a few things to learn from me. And I’ve learned a lot from you.

**John:** So, 40 years of leadership development. How did it begin? How did it evolve? And I have so many questions about this.

**Mark:** Well, again, just for the sake of our listeners, I’ll do sort of the executive version. But I always knew that I was interested in human behavior, specifically relationships among people and how to create and foster you know, positive relationships. So I majored in psychology, and then I went and did graduate studies in a couple of different areas. One was I got my master’s in human resource development. And so I think I always knew that that was something I wanted to do. And so I kind of fell into an HR My first job was actually in recruiting, which was in a state university system in Illinois. And so there really wasn’t much recruiting. There was just more interviewing going on at that point in time. So I don’t think I learned how to recruit anybody and was very fortunate to have a mentor who took an interest in me. And so I think that’s one thing that I would— maybe we talk about at some point too, the importance of a mentor. I didn’t really go out and search for that person. They sort of found me, and that was very helpful. And this individual was the head of HR for the University of Illinois. And he just, again, took sort of an interest in me as a young person starting off in this field. He orchestrated probably the first 2 or 3 moves for me within the HR arena. And I did some jobs that I hated, but I realized later that they were super important to building a foundation. But it wasn’t until the middle part of my career that I discovered there was this whole area of leadership development. The interest that I had at that point in time was I felt like that was the highest and greatest leverage point for me to have an influence within an organization, if I could have an opportunity to work with leaders within the organization. So, you know, there’s a lot more to that story, but that’s kind of the very broad arc.

**John:** And what brought you to Red Hat?

**Mark:** One of my other transitions was I left a full-time job to start my own company. And one thing you’ll learn about me is I maybe have a few gifts. One of them is not timing, because I started the same sort of gig that you’re doing now, but I started it in 2008, in the middle of the Great Recession. Not great timing, but I was just ready, and I had, I had sort of built a platform for that time in my life. And so I spent 5 years doing coaching, HR consulting, working in that arena under my own shingle, and did that for— I committed to doing that for 5 years. And during that time, the last year or so of that, I got connected with some people at Red Hat. And I started doing what I call kind of— it’s the equivalent of ghostwriting for somebody. But there was a bunch of leadership development going on at Red Hat. I knew somebody who was contracted to work with Red Hat, and they needed some help. And so I did a lot of work helping this individual with the project that she was hired for. And it became— more and more and more and more to the point where she said, Mark, I really feel like I need to tell Red Hat who I’m working with. And so, and this person, I don’t mind naming her, her name is Deborah Mangum, probably the world’s greatest coach that I’ve ever met. And so, she was very instrumental in introducing me to Red Hat. And at that point in time, I’d met my 5-year commitment. I was ready to go back and work with colleagues and rub shoulders with people. It can be a little bit lonely out there when you’re doing your own thing. And so one thing led to another. They offered me an opportunity, and I took it, and I stayed at Red Hat for 11 years.

**John:** Amazing. You mentioned having a mentor earlier in your career. A lot of times people, when they come to coaching with me, they’ll say, I want to find a mentor. I don’t have a mentor. and they ask me, how do I find one? I’m not sure I always have a good answer. What would you say to someone that’s looking for a mentor?

**Mark:** Well, one thing I would say, there’s a lot of mystery around a lot of this stuff in the career area. Mentorship is kind of like one of those mysterious areas. I think I want to just try to demystify it for people. It’s about building and creating relationships with people that can introduce you to ideas and people and experiences that you haven’t had. And so the first thing you need to do is make that a priority. I don’t love the word— just like retirement, I don’t love the word networking because that always sounded a little manipulative to me. It’s like, I’m going to build my network and I’m going to crush the people that I have to climb over in my career. And so, you know, words mean a lot to me, and sometimes I take it a little bit too far, but I just call it relationship building. And I think if you do that well and you’re generous in those relationships, you will many times identify somebody who’s very interested in you and has maybe, again, been to some places, maybe they’re more senior than you. That’s, you know, many of the, many of the times it’s that. It doesn’t need to be, but it’s helpful sometimes, somebody who’s had some experience you haven’t. And then I find you just have to ask. And most people, at least the people that you want to serve as your mentor, are flattered that you would ask them. Now, they may be concerned about may not have the time. They may not feel like they have all the expertise. But it’s very rare that somebody will just turn you down and say, no, I’m not interested in doing that. And if they do, then you just go on to your next person on your list.

**John:** How would you go about developing that list? Because that’s often another thing. I have nobody, you know, I, I need a mentor. I’m like, okay, who, who could you reach out to? No, there’s no one. And of course I never believed that, but you know, how would someone start with that?

**Mark:** Well, I think as a good coach, you would probably tell them, well, pretend like you did have somebody.

**John:** I would, but I’m not coaching them now. So they’re listening to this and they, they haven’t coached with either of us. They’re like, yeah, that’s— yeah.

**Mark:** That was always one of my favorite coaching questions. So, well, I don’t know how to do that. Well, just pretend for a moment that you do know how to do that. And you get very blank stares.

**John:** It’s very effective though. Yeah. I asked it to someone the other day. They had an organization like 250 people and they needed to do this whole thing. And, and I said, well, if you were giving advice to someone in your— this very same situation in this, because I had no idea what to tell them what to do. And they paused for, you know, 15 seconds. They’re like, oh, I’d hold a meeting and I would do this and I would do that. And it was the next step. Anyway, go ahead.

**Mark:** There you go. Yeah, I mean, we all suffer from a little bit of learned helplessness sometimes. And, you know, it’s kind of triggered by our fear or our insecurity at times. And like, I love your approach with me on the podcasting thing. I said, hey, kind of interested in that. I know that you’ve been doing that. And you go, well, my best advice is let’s just get out there and do it. And I thought, well, okay, I’m game. So you learn as you go. So, you know, honestly, it takes a little bit of work. I like kind of a concentric circle type of approach. The people that are around your circle who you trust the most and kind of springboard off of some of those Relationships. I do think I actually have a tool that I developed, and I don’t know always how well these kinds of tools work, but it is kind of this concentric circle thing. And then you break it into quadrants and you can then begin to identify people that fall kind of close to you or they’re kind of distant from you. The further you get away from the center, the more distant. You just don’t have a relationship with them, but you want to. And you can put in those quadrants anything you want. So maybe it’s mentorship in a particular area. For example, if you don’t know much about strategy, and so it’s sort of, I want to learn about strategy. And so how can I start branching out with some people that I know? And then it’s always this idea of connecting with people. And if it’s not the right person, well, who do you know that might be able to connect me with. And so it’s kind of a telephone game that way. It’s not a great answer, John. I don’t— but I guess I just don’t think there’s any magic to it. But here’s the thing I would say is, and this is a big leadership thing with me and the teams that I’ve worked with, is relationship building is a lot of the work. So you try to figure out how things get done inside of teams, and inside of organizations, and inside of communities. And a lot of that is built upon the quality of the relationships that you have. And so sometimes people say, oh, it’s kind of a waste of time Do this kind of networking, relationship building. I don’t see the end result. It’s because it’s so interwoven inside of what we’re trying to accomplish. Sometimes it’s a bit invisible to us, but it’s really, really important and it pays dividends. Like now I’m retired and I’m talking to people all the time. People are reaching out to me. Because they just want to keep the connection and they’re hot and heavy inside of their career.

**John:** Have you found a way with that to make it so that it’s not transactional? To me, that’s the stinky part of networking is I want to meet that person because I want something. I don’t really I just want to meet Mark because Mark has all the access to dot dot dot. So, but I’ll pretend that I’m wondering about Mark and his family, but I don’t really care. Like, I just want access. How do you help someone with something like that?

**Mark:** That’s a great question. Um, I would say model John here because, uh, one of the things you just said to me a couple days ago when we were talking was, you know, I like to approach these Podcasts from curiosity, a genuine curiosity. And so if you can kind of cultivate that, I do think it requires some work. And it is okay to admit that I have an end objective in mind. You know, you don’t have to pretend. You know, it’s like, yes, I need help. I— it is a bit transactional, but almost any kind of relationship has a bit of a transactional element. It just can’t be It just can’t be the core motive because that doesn’t build a relationship because it sounds way too one-way. So I think you can always ask, look, you know, I may be very junior to you, but is there anything that I can do, John, to help you in the work that you’re doing? And so you try to make it a little bit more of an exchange as opposed to a transaction. But most people, that you’re talking to are smart. They know that there’s an objective that you have, but you don’t have to pretend.

**John:** Okay. I like that. This idea of a career, that was really when we met and then I started thinking, oh, okay. If Mark and I were to talk, what could we talk about? And this question comes up so often. People Come to me, they’ll say, I need to craft my career. I need a career plan. I need a plan for the next 5 years. I’ve, oh, you know, I got assigned to you as my coach through this program with my company. And I, or I picked you because I looked you up on LinkedIn and you have this perfect progression from finance to technology to working for yourself. And I want to know how you did that. So that you can help me craft a similar plan. What is a career? What is this whole term career? I feel like people are like, I know what it is and I know I need to have one and I know it needs to be good. And yet it’s this kind of amorphous thing that we think that we all know what it is. And the older I get, the more I’m just like, am I having a career? I don’t know.

**Mark:** Yeah, I, um, having come out of the, the HR I think it’s HR’s fault. They came up with this idea of career, and then you gotta have a career development plan, and you follow the plan. I honestly, in 40 years, I don’t know many people that have designed a career plan, like a map, and followed it. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It’s why I like to talk in terms of arc. There is a sort of an arc that you want to follow, and the arc is not a step-by-step. It’s like in your case, you probably didn’t know exactly what the progression was going to be. But for me, it has always been, I want to make sure that I stay relevant and that I have impact, impact that matters inside an organization that’s doing good things. So I have a big arc. And a lot of room inside that arc for it to be expressed in this way or that way.

**John:** When did you figure that out, though?

**Mark:** You know, some through coaching, coaching that I’ve received. And honestly, you learn a lot in coaching other people. I think reflection, reflection on the things that Bring me joy and the things that zap my energy and wanting to align my career more with the things that give me energy and feel like I’m in a bit of a flow. And so you have to look at those because I believe we are wired in a certain way and then we can rewire some of the circuitry. We know a lot about the brain and how that works, but— But I think you have to discover what is your basic wiring and what are the things that really do— I love that word joy. You know, what are they? It’s not only things I enjoy doing, it’s like these bring me joy. I mean, I can get kind of lost in this. What is that? What does that look like? What are you looking for in terms of not only the outcome of your career, but the experience of it? What do you want to experience? If you get too outcome-focused, you can— and it’s too specific, I feel like you’re going to be disappointed more than you’re going to be pleased and happy.

**John:** Yeah, that’s how I started out. I got an accounting degree because I had this passionate accounting teacher that said, if you’re a CPA, It’s the fastest path to becoming CEO of a company. And I thought, well, yeah, I want to be CEO of a company. Let’s do this.

**Mark:** There you go.

**John:** I did the auditing. Was not fun. Passing the CPA exam was not fun. Then I started to see quarters and Ks and Qs and year-ends, and I’m just like, wait, what? Like, I don’t like any of this.

**Mark:** And then again, you don’t know it until you know. And so that’s a— that scenario probably repeats itself multiple times with people. Sometimes it’s somebody else’s voice that’s in your head. I remember when I was a kid, my dad asked me, well, what do you want to do, you know, when you’re an adult, when you grow up? I said, I think I Dad, I think I’d either like to be a police officer or a teacher. There was dead silence. Dead silence. I still remember the moment.

**John:** Those are the wrong answers?

**Mark:** Yeah, apparently, apparently were not what was in his head. And he says, his one response, well, you can’t make any money doing either one of those things, which is kind of true and kind of sad. But it depends on, again, if my outcome goal was to make a lot of money, then those might not be great choices. But there was something in my heart, I think, that really loved learning and this whole idea of service and doing something noble. And so part of it is it’s a discovery process, and it’s back to that curiosity word that we talked about a little bit. And so I gotta— I have to be open to discover things. You discovered some things that you don’t want to do, you know, in your first jump, right?

**John:** And that’s what I often tell people when they’re like, so how did you plan this? Like, I’m like, I just kept getting rid of the things that didn’t work for me and following the things that I was curious about, including podcasting. 15 years ago— yeah, 15 years ago or so, I’d listened to them before they were kind of a thing.

**Mark:** Wow.

**John:** And I started recording stuff with a friend thinking, I don’t know, let’s do this. And then I went to some conferences and then it was just pure curiosity.

**Mark:** See, I, you know, I think we’ve answered your question there. And at least for some people, this may not be satisfying to some that want more of a concrete plan. It’s fine. I think what we may be saying is some people will say, well, it’s got to be really specific. Well, in the world in which we live in, I like to say, hold the rope loosely. You got to have a rope. You got to be going somewhere. You got to have something that you can hang on to. But if you hold it too tight, you’re going to get jerked all over the place. And if you hold it too tight, you’re going to miss opportunities to do other things. So hold the rope loosely, be curious, do what you did, which is like, I’m just kind of curious, I’m going to give it a shot. It’s the best learning.

**John:** Did you think that you would spend 40 years in leadership development?

**Mark:** I mean, depending on what time you ask me, what snapshot. You know, in my career, you asked me, I would say probably early on, no. Right now, honestly, I feel like I’m still in leadership development. That hasn’t changed for me.

**John:** So, yeah, then the society of career, like, is your career over? I don’t think it is. I mean, I’m going to speak for you, but I’m like, when does the career end? Does it have to end? What does it even mean?

**Mark:** Yeah, it’s a great question. I hadn’t really thought about it until just now. I think my career at Red Hat has ended. My journey, or that arc that I’m still following, which is to help people be the very best that they can and to bring out the very best in others, That remains alive and well. When that goes away, then maybe my career has ended there, but I don’t see that happening anytime real soon.

**John:** Then you’ll really retire.

**Mark:** I’ll really retire, yeah. I’ll be dead.

**John:** What are still some things you want to do?

**Mark:** Oh, man. You know, it’s funny, people ask me that a lot. When you get to this zone that I’m in— we’ll just call it a zone, right? now, or this transition time, people always say, okay, well, you must have like a bucket list. I said, no, that was a movie. Um, I— there are a few things I want to do. Like, my wife and I want to go to Spain and Portugal. And, and, you know, I, I’ve, I’ve just kind of zipped through those 2 countries. And so now I want to go. But I mean, that’s not really— I don’t think what you’re asking. It’s sort of like, well, what’s the next big hill?

**John:** Oh, it doesn’t have to be big. You could be like, no, I want to go to Spain, and then I want to go to Switzerland, and then I want to sit on the beach for 6 months until I get bored. And then, like, I don’t know.

**Mark:** Yeah. And I’ll say, this is going to sound maybe a little weird, but it does go back to what we were talking about discovery. And for me, because my wife will ask me things like that, and I’ll say, you know, I’m 6 weeks into this thing, I’m still discovering. The first month, you know, after I left Red Hat, we traveled because I have 4 grandchildren, you know, and they’re up in North Carolina. So, we wanted to spend a lot of time with them. And the month of May is real big. We got some birthdays, we got some other stuff going on. And so, we In fact, there are no birthdays in May, but there was a bunch of other stuff going on. The birthdays are all in March. But we went up there, spent some time with them. And so we were gone more than we were here. And then sometimes when you’re traveling, it’s not your normal rhythm and pace. And so I talk a lot about what is a rhythm and pace that I that I want to get into on a daily and a weekly and a monthly basis because you have a rhythm and pace when you’re working, right? When you’re in this, I’m trying to discover what that is. Sorry, that was a really long answer, but that’s kind of where I am right now.

**John:** So you’re still figuring it out?

**Mark:** Yeah, I think so. And it’s awesome. It doesn’t feel weird at all. It’s like—

**John:** It’s not a problem.

**Mark:** It’s not. When I’m done talking to you, it’s like, well, I’ll have lots of time during the rest of the day. It’s like, well, I can pitter around, or I can run— I can run some Mary’s, you know, errands. I can, I can do that. I have gotten myself on a condo board. Which probably deserves its own podcast.

**John:** When I hear condo board, my heart just— my stomach just sinks and I’m like, ah, nightmare! Is that not the case where you live?

**Mark:** Not completely. There are days— my wife and I were traveling a year ago. We were in St. Augustine, Florida, and we stayed at a bed and breakfast. I don’t know if you’ve done a lot of that, but, you know, when, when the bed and breakfast is, is kind of full with guests, you, you end up meeting those people sometimes over a dinner, you know, in the common areas. Oh yeah. And, and so it was, you know, we, we— it was the next morning. We’d stayed overnight, and we’re, we’re out on the porch, a big, big beautiful porch veranda, and we’re drinking coffee. And I, I got talking to this one guy out here And, uh, it just, you know, he’s asking me what I was doing, stuff like that. And somehow this condo board thing came up, and he paused in the middle of it. He said, wait a second, you volunteered to be on a condo board? And then he, he turns his head and he, and he goes, hey, John! Because I guess they were traveling with some friends. John! Come over here. You got to meet this guy. John comes over and he goes, yeah, do you know this guy volunteered to be on a condo board? And John goes, what in the heck were you thinking? So this long conversation. So it seems like there’s something that people know that I apparently was naive to. And so I, I am very much in the discovery thing. But in all seriousness, it’s an opportunity within a community to build a community, which should be right in my sweet spot as a leadership development person. Yeah, coaching myself here.

**John:** What’s something you’re super curious about that you haven’t explored yet?

**Mark:** Well, one is what we’re doing right now. I honestly, when I discovered podcasting, and I didn’t realize it was around as long as it has been until you just said what you said a couple moments ago. But I found a bunch of young people listening to podcasts, and I thought, boy, it sounded an awful lot like, you know, people in the ’40s gathering around their radio. And I thought, why would young people want to listen to a podcast? And then I got into it and I thought, well, there’s some really cool and thoughtful things that people are talking about. And it’s a very interesting medium of communication and learning and sharing. And so that’s— I’ve got a huge curiosity about that. And for sure. And it’s kind of an alternative because I thought for a long time, John, I really— I wanted to write a book. I felt like I had a book or two in me. And then I realized at least— and I may just maybe be dealing with a warped group of friends and colleagues. I don’t know. Sorry, friends and colleagues, if you listen to this. But I don’t know that many people that read. Anymore, like a book. And so I thought, I got to write a book and have it sit on the shelf with 50,000 other books on leadership and figure out who this dude is and why I would want to read what he has to say. And so for me, this is another avenue. to express and have good dialogue, conversation, provocative kinds of exchanges, maybe that’s the podcast for me. So sorry, I’m one track, so to speak, right now.

**John:** Are there any things in all of your years of leadership development that you were never able To solve, like a particular problem or something, you’re just like, I really want to solve that and it’s not solvable or it wasn’t solvable?

**Mark:** Wow. It’s actually a brilliant question. I’ll answer it and sort of attack it from a tangent. It was another discovery for me. When you can see the right path, and you’ll identify this with this very quickly as a coach, when you can see the right path for somebody and you can see something that is completely— they’re blind to, and you can see how they can alleviate some pain or make progress or achieve great success, and their motivation is just not there. They may even see it, but they’re just not motivated. The limitation of a coach or somebody facilitating development of leaders, you can’t supply the motivation for somebody who lacks it. I don’t know if that means anything, but there are many times when I was trying to do that. It’s like, you should see this, you are so brilliant, or the thing that you’re looking for is right there. But that’s just a wish for me. And so I think kind of backdooring your question a little bit, it’s like, well, how— can I go about and create the circumstances that bring out their motivation and their ability to see it, I think, is the— is kind of the ongoing challenge. Sometimes I’ve been successful with that, but a lot of times not. Does that make any sense to you?

**John:** It does. And it also taps into something I’ve really been playing with, which is I don’t know. I’ve been really questioning, and I’ve been questioning it for a few years, this whole idea of motivation, if it even exists, if it’s even a thing. That’s one thought. Then another thought is, and what I’m starting to— I’m seeing this a ton in work with my own coach, but I’m starting to see it more and more in the people I’m working with. There seems to be an element of self-preservation. Like, if you want to get really deep and psychological, like ego protection, identity protection, this is who I am. I have to maintain this sense of who I am. And that feels more important and more critical to me remaining me than venturing out into this other way.

**Mark:** Hmm.

**John:** In the sense of, maybe a better way to explain this is I was talking to someone recently about They’re like, well, I’m just not motivated to do this thing or whatever. And I was like, well, how committed to— what would this thing— what would this get you if you were to do it? And what we found out, the why wasn’t big enough. And then they had kids. I’m like, so are you motivated to be a good dad? It’s like, well, I’m like, you don’t wake up in the morning like, well, gotta find the motivation today to take care of my family because, you know, I really don’t give a crap about them at all. It’s like, no, it’s like you’re committed to them. The same thing with courage. I put courage in the same— like, I gotta find courage to— your kids are awake in the middle of the night because they’re, they’re sick. You’re not like, well, I better get motivated to get out of bed to help them. I don’t know, what do you think of all those things?

**Mark:** Yeah, wow. That’s a lot. Yeah, sometimes I think we— when I have something like this that faces me, I always want to turn it inside for a second and say, well, geez, have I ever done that? Because it gives me empathy.

**John:** Yes.

**Mark:** Oh, you need empathy. Empathy for the people that I work with. It’s just like, because I could say, oh, you know, like, people, they—

**John:** If they would just—

**Mark:** If they would just— see the logic that I’m laying down for them, you know, the world would be better. But it’s not that way. So I have to turn it to myself. And I said, well, sometimes that’s just fear, right? Um, when I say, you know, I, I need to be myself, that’s just not me. So I have to be me, whatever that is. Sometimes that’s a fear response.

**John:** Oh, that’s an immediate red flag when I’m talking to someone. Oh, that’s just who I am. You know, I’m the kind of person that I’m like, okay, you might be, but it’s that whole idea keeping you completely stuck and cemented into the place that you say that you keep wanting to leave.

**Mark:** My favorite response in a situation like that is, and how is that working for you? How’s, how’s that working out for you, you being you? You know, you being you is getting you everything you need, and you’re getting great feedback from other people. And, and so Then nothing needs to change. Right. But people genuinely, generally and sometimes genuinely will admit that, yeah, it doesn’t always work for me and people don’t see that. So, yeah, I agree with you on the whole motivation thing. What is that and how to unpack that? That’s a tough one. Maybe I’ll add it to my career lexicon and just going from retirement and whatever the heck these things really mean.

**John:** You’re going to come up with a whole list of words that are off limits.

**Mark:** I’m going to ban those things. For years at Red Hat, we had— you’ll remember this— we had a Well, it’s proper, I guess, logo was Shadow Man. It was this idea of Shadow Man. Shadow Man was always sort of mysterious in the Red Hat culture. And so somebody started kind of codifying what Shadow Man would never say. And so you’d be in a conversation and somebody would say, well, Shadow Man would never say that. And I, every once in a while, would take issue with Shadow Man. I said, well, if you would bring him out here, and let me have a conversation with him, maybe he would allow me to use the word leverage. Um, but apparently Shadow Man did not love the word leverage.

**John:** Oh yeah, because leveraging— people talk about leveraging the community and then all the alarms would go off. Yeah,

**Mark:** right, right. You can’t, you know, that sounds manipulative and you don’t leverage people. You know, I, I guess that’s where that came from. So you kind of get it, but Obviously, another whole conversation we can have one day maybe is the power of words, because words matter a lot. Yeah. So motivation is one of those things. Tricky, tricky idea. And because in the leadership development arena, a lot of times you ask leaders what they want to work on. And oftentimes it’s like, well, I want to learn how to motivate people. Like, oh, good luck. Because one, we’re going to have to wipe out a lot of the things that you learned. We’re going to have to unlearn a bunch of stuff, and then we’re going to have to build some new neural pathways because it’s super complex. And I hate to disappoint you, but you don’t have the power to motivate somebody. You only have an ability to influence certain factors and hope that that brings out somebody’s internal motivation. That was at least— that was the world according to Rumbles on motivation. You asked me a little while ago, about, you know, what, what’s out there. And I just peeked over at a couple notes that I took before we got on the air here, and I have a budding mission. I guess that’s a good springtime word, you know, kind of a budding mission to see what I can do in my small area of the world to, to bring back more civility. and ability for people to disagree and to debate, to have healthy conflict that doesn’t polarize people and create hatred. But you and I can have a spirited debate and not agree completely with each other. But we build respect through the process, and maybe I learn something and maybe you learn something. So I don’t know exactly what form that takes. Sometimes you just have to start in your individual relationships that you have with people. But that’s an interest of mine, and seems like there’s— seems to me like there’s a need for that.

**John:** Yes, yes, I agree. Would not disagree with you there. Well, what’s interesting is I think of that as, I mean, my time from Red Hat is aging, but I remember there was kind of an ethos around arguing meritocracy, arguing for the, like, a lot of discussion around like, what’s the best way to do this? A lot of argument, a lot of disagreement. Sometimes though, it felt like, which I thought was useful, except that sometimes things tilted too much in that direction and then decisions didn’t get made.

**Mark:** Yeah.

**John:** Oh boy. Decision slash execution was maybe not as robust as the robustness of the arguing.

**Mark:** Right. I think there was probably arguing for arguing’s sake and then a bit of pride that comes in when I’m able to express my opinion and it’s a passionate opinion, and I might even express that to power. That was part of that ethos that you’re talking about. It’s like, oh yeah, this is built in the culture. I can do that.

**John:** Anyone can say anything to anyone, including the CEO.

**Mark:** Right, right. And then I would say, and what is your objective in mind? Is it that, are you trying to influence something for the collective good? Are you just trying to be argumentative? Or is this a power trip or what? And I love the word that you used there was this balance. There is such a need for— there’s kind of a yin and yang to a lot of things that are super important in the world. And understanding and maintaining the right balance. And by balance, I don’t mean it’s always equal. I mean, there’s a time to kind of ramp up one side of that yin and yang equation because of whatever the circumstances are, but you just can’t forget about the other side. There is a time to be passionate and to speak your mind. And then there’s also, to your point a second ago, a time to act. Like, we’re just not going to debate to debate to debate. It’s got to be to make a better decision within a reasonable time frame.

**John:** Yeah. The back and forth.

**Mark:** Sorry. No, I was just going to say that’s a lot of what we focus on in the leadership development

**John:** So do you have ideas where this idea of civility— do you have any ideas so far in terms of where you will do that?

**Mark:** Yeah, I mean, I think I would like to see it modeled more. For example, and not to pick on any networks or anything, but it’s just crystal clear if you live in the United States and you have a television that you can dial in one network and get a strong sort of worldview and dial into another and get a completely different one. So if I spend all my time in one of those areas, it’s obviously going to flavor my thinking and the news that I’m consuming, if it is news. Or opinions or whatever. Rarely do we see any more— there was an old show called Point/Counterpoint or something like that back in the day where it was 2 people really debating important issues from 2 different sides. And the important thing was not to necessarily come to a resolution. But just to understand both sides. And if you’re going to live in the world, you got to be able to do that. So kind of a long answer. I think even in, say, the podcast arena, to be able to talk to people, to invite people to have a discussion and model it. But it’s not a role play. It’s about a real issue. Right?

**John:** Right. I’m thinking like from our previous world, it would be, you know, the benefits of open source software versus the benefits of, say, proprietary software. And that could be a real—

**Mark:** It could be.

**John:** It could be a real interesting conversation. And I mean, coming from our background, it’d be like, well, there’s, yeah, proprietary software, there can be very little good about it. Well, that’s probably not true. I mean, there’s probably more good in it than— there’s probably more good in it than maybe we’re aware of because we’ve never gone down the path. We just kind of wrote it off as like, well, no, open source is the best way.

**Mark:** Right. Well, and it comes down to sometimes in those kinds of situations, you know, if you’re a business like Red Hat that’s trying to make money through open source software development and deploying that, it’s important to have an enemy. So the enemy becomes proprietary software. And so you usually don’t name your enemy in glowing— these are the benefits of the proprietary. And we do that with social issues as well. Right. So rather than just— there are attributes of both and there are downsides of both. And depending on what your circumstances are and what you’re trying to do, those attributes and downsides kind of play out differently. To me, that’s a civil society that you can have that kind of discussion without making somebody into a— making issues a pariah or turning people into villains.

**John:** Yeah, I mean, someone will probably hear me say proprietary software has its merits and write me off forever. Who knows?

**Mark:** Yep. You’re done. I’m done with you. Yeah. It’s like, well, you know—

**John:** It’s way more complicated.

**Mark:** Maybe that’s all that there was and we seem to progress okay. And maybe open source software is a better idea or it’s an additional avenue. And so, yeah. To me, There’s a great story that Jan Smith, my former boss, tells about— I’m going to just butcher it, so we’ll have to find out.

**John:** Let’s make it really good. You can attribute it to her and then— yeah.

**Mark:** Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then go call Jan and get the real story. But it’s a story about Abraham Lincoln, and he’s responding to somebody who just looks sort of adamantly opposed to him and what he’s trying to do. And Lincoln’s response effectively is, wow, I really just don’t like this person at all. I’ll have to get to know him better. So, you know, it’s sort of like, well, you’re very passionate, you have some opinions. And his response was, well, I need to— again, leaning into that curiosity thing, like, maybe I ought to know something here.

**John:** Yeah.

**Mark:** That’s pretty cool.

**John:** Well, is there anything else we should be curious about today?

**Mark:** Yeah, I got one more thing on my mind that I’m really curious to hear your response. And maybe it’s just because you challenged me a little bit to think about my so far 40-year journey, sometimes called a career or continuing career. And that is, you know, I realize I’m a bit of a— we went to a restaurant the other day and it was one of the fusion restaurants. And I forgot what they were fusing, but it was really tasty. Okay. It was Mexican, Spanish, something else fusion. And I realized that that’s kind of how I looked at leadership development. I’m kind of a fusion guy. So, you know, there’s there’s certain authors and certain frameworks and approaches that I like more than others. But ultimately, you know, I’m not going to be somebody who’s probably going to say, well, you know, I’d like to adopt this and we’re going to run with this. I’d like to, you know, take a little bit and kind of fuse it together. So my thinking about leadership development has kind of moved down that path. And I get to the point where I’ve come up with sort of— I don’t know if this is the right math— it’s the right terminology, but sort of an axiom or kind of general rule. And that is we need to be better diagnosticians in our relationships with people and inside of organizations and you inside of your coaching relationships. So I often have said, follow the fear. So the thing that tends to hang a lot of people up, all of us, back again, pointing the finger first at myself, is when I get stuck, sometimes I have to ask myself, what am I afraid of? And it’s a huge question. Right. And so you asked me to kind of wrap things up, and now I’m doing what I always do, which is like open up another whole big cano.

**John:** Perfect.

**Mark:** Which maybe says we should continue. The other thing is to follow the energy. So when you’re having a discussion with somebody or you’re helping somebody find their career path, It’s back to what we were talking about earlier, which is there’ll be— you can see when people light up. Even the most non-expressive people will be different when they’re energized by something. And so follow the fear. Yes. To get at something deeper, follow the energy to kind of see how people are wired. And then unfortunately, inside of a business, follow the money. And so if you’re trying to figure out why people do certain things that they do inside of a company, and I don’t want to overplay this because it just sounds like I’m talking about just greedy people and companies, and I don’t really believe that. But by money, I really mean incentives. People have incentives to do things. And sometimes the incentive is not money, but maybe it’s recognition or it’s someone’s attention. I get more attention when— and sometimes it’s even subtle. It’s so subtle that I don’t even realize it. So that’s my big axiom. It’s kind of 3 things kind of packed into a molecule. And it helps me when I get stuck and when I’m trying to help other people get unstuck. Those 3 things, understand where the fear is, go with and explore what that energy is all about. and, you know, follow how people are— their behavior is being rewarded.

**John:** Well, it reminds me, there’s this, uh, therapist guy, John Delony. He always says behavior is a language. What’s being said?

**Mark:** Yeah.

**John:** And I like, I like that a lot. He’s often like counseling people in the context of relationships and what they should do and their partners. The partner says this, but the partner’s always doing that. It’s like, okay, well, if behavior is a language, what is this that? Like, what is this telling you? Yeah, they’re long gone. Like, they are— they say they’re in the relationship, but their behavior says they have— they’re not. What does that tell you? What do you want to do with this? Which is often a really hard truth to deal with.

**Mark:** Yeah, it, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s, it’s I love the language there. It’s really expressive and makes a lot of sense. And that’s why relationships sometimes go off track, because my words don’t match what you’re seeing with my behavior or even sometimes my body language. And so people are not stupid. They realize it’s like, well, their brain goes, something just doesn’t add up here. And if it doesn’t add up, then Are you trying to manipulate me? Are you— if you think about it from the recipient’s side of that.

**John:** Well, it doesn’t build trust.

**Mark:** No. Perfect. Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. People need to see that continuity. And that’s why you have to reflect very carefully yourself to say, okay, am I really in line with what I’m saying? what I’m doing. If I’m not, then I may be sowing seeds of mistrust.

**John:** No, and I like this. What is the fear? I mean, that gets to my earlier thing around self-preservation. When I look at my own fears, it almost always comes down to some notion of preserving John. Is it preserving my physical safety? which is usually overblown. And even usually, and the real big stuff is around preserving this notion of who John is and who John is in the world to myself, to other people. It’s more often than not to other people, but sometimes to myself. And there’s— oh my gosh, you could spend years there.

**Mark:** No, you definitely could. Yeah, it’s back to that whole identity thing. And Yeah, you get threats to our ego. Now, some of that is sort of hardwired in our DNA, and some of it’s really good. You know, if you, you know, you need to be, you know, there are things we should be afraid of, and that’s good when we know that. But like you said, sometimes we are reacting in fear to things that I should not fear and they are holding me back. This has been super interesting.

**John:** Yeah, we asked more— we asked more questions than we answered.

**Mark:** Yeah, well, there you go.

**John:** If people wanted to talk to you or find you or whatever, where’s the best place for them to do that?

**Mark:** I am fine with people, um, reaching out to me. I am on LinkedIn. So pretty easy to find Mark Rumbles. There aren’t a lot of us. The Rumbles seems to be an English name. And so sometimes you might, you know, you may, you may find yourself in, in somewhere in the UK or in England or— but yeah, I’m pretty easy to find there. And, you know, email if people want to, want to contact me. I’m happy to respond to that. REDACTED will get to me. Probably the best thing I would, you know, I’m always open to anybody that wants to reach out for anything that I might be able to help with and maybe lead to something that’s really kind of interesting.

**John:** Thanks for listening to The John Poelstra Show. Notes, links, and all that other good stuff for this episode are at johnpoelstra.com/podcast. Send your questions, ideas, or a simple hello to REDACTED. Want to stay up to date on new episodes and receive notifications? of upcoming events? Register your email address at johnpoelstra.com/updates.

The post 129: Fusing 40 Years of HR, Leadership Development and Life Lessons with Mark Rumbles appeared first on John Poelstra.

Doug Hunter and I discuss artificial intelligence (AI), including how it works, its impact on various aspects of life and work and how to get started with it.

Doug provides an overview of AI, distinguishing between classical AI and the more recent generative AI. Doug also explains how AI works on probabilities and patterns, and discusses its current capabilities and limitations.

Our conversation covers the potential applications of AI in fields such as marketing, customer service, education, and coaching. Doug emphasizes the importance of understanding and adapting to AI technologies, while also highlighting some of the risks and ethical concerns. He suggests practical ways for individuals and businesses to start using AI tools and advises on how to approach AI integration strategically.

All songs licensed under Creative Commons

## Transcript

*This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.*

**John:** Today I’m talking to Doug Hunter about AI. Doug recently led an excellent webinar along with Mike Terry, who runs Core Digital Consulting. They gave a really good practical overview to AI, primarily focused on marketers. Now, I’m not really a marketer, but I’ve been on the sidelines of AI and not particularly interested in it. Until, I don’t know, maybe 6 months ago when I started playing around with Perplexity for doing web searches. And then I used Claude 2 to summarize some podcast episodes using a technique demonstrated by Christopher Penn. So I wanted to follow my curiosity today and I thought, why not talk to Doug, get a little bit more about this whole AI thing, his thoughts, his perspectives. And just a little background on Doug. Doug is currently the principal at Peak Solutions, a marketing and strategy consultancy in Portland, Oregon. Before that, he was Vice President of Marketing at Arjunta. Before that, he had held a number of senior roles at Lattice Semiconductor. And prior to that, he was a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. Thanks for joining me today, Doug.

**Doug:** Thanks, John. Thanks for having me on.

**John:** So AI, what does it even mean? We— it’s like in the news everywhere. Everyone’s talking about AI. What is it? And yeah, why should I care?

**Doug:** You should care because it’s changing your life and you don’t even know it. And if you don’t keep up, you’ll get left behind. Um, so what is this thing doing that to you? I— yeah, when you think about— we toss around the phrase AI and never really think about it in the same way I think we toss around the phrase IBM and never actually think what IBM means, or any one of the other acronyms that we have kicking around. Um, artificial intelligence is actually a really descriptive phrase, meaning, um, it’s artificial. It’s not real. It’s, it’s not a sentient human being that’s doing the thinking or showing the intelligence. It’s a machine. It’s a computer. It’s a computer doing things in a way that look or seem human. That, that, that’s a very philosophical description of it. On a very practical level, AI is really about probabilities. It’s calculating probabilities of this and probabilities of that. And AI is not new. AI has been around for 20, 30, 40 years, and it’s only recently come into kind of popular consciousness because of the rise of generative AI. So what I’ll call classical AI, you know, for example, back at Lattice, we had a web database of 400,000 visitors to our website where we had cookies on them and we had tracks of their behavior. And of the 400,000, only about 100,000 people were where they had given us their contact information and we knew what their market segment was, which was important because we were differentiating people’s experience based on what their marketing segment was. If you’re coming from the consumer industry, you’ll get shown different content than someone who’s coming from computing or industrial. But again, remember, we only had 100,000 out of the 400,000 people who we knew what their end market was. So for those other 300,000, we hired a firm to use AI, artificial intelligence, to calculate the probability of what market segment these other 300K were so we could assign a market segment to them even though, you know, we didn’t know for sure, but we knew what was most likely so we could tailor the experience so they’d likely have a better experience, be more likely to engage with us and buy. So that was something that I did with AI, geez, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, long before GenAI ever came around. And so AI was really the domain of people who were data scientists and worked with sophisticated algorithms behind closed doors. And, you know, it was just this kind of a secret black box. And to some extent it still is. But the difference is with GenAI, GenAI has democratized access to AI in the sense of you and I, if you have a phone or a computer, you have the ability to use and access AI and to do things that were never thought of as possible years and years ago. And so generative AI, again, as the name implies, is something that generates data. So for example, you talked about using Perplexity in your intro. You know, it generates an answer, it generates new data in answer to your query. But what’s interesting is it’s typically not new data. It’s old data that’s been presented in a new way to you. It’s been presented in a way that mirrors the query that you gave it. So in some sense, the AI is a very complex— think of it, you can almost think of it as like a complex Google search where instead of getting 126,278 results, you get one. And, you know, and you just have to trust that it’s telling you the truth, which given the hallucination rates of these things, you just don’t know. But it’s getting better and it’s enabling things that just weren’t possible just a year ago or even 3 years ago.

**John:** So when you say generative AI, we’re talking ChatGPT, Perplexity Cloud 2, 3?

**Doug:** Yeah, and you can think of some broad, broad swaths. So things like Perplexity, ChatGPT specialize on words. Um, things like DALL-E, Midjourney specialize on images. Something like Sora specializes on video. I think there’s something called Sonos maybe specializes in audio. So any, any way that a human interacts— visual, audio, written— they’re finding ways to use AI to generate additional content in that type of form. And what you’re also seeing is the rise of what’s called pure or native multimodal. So for example, there would be a model that would just do text, or a model that would just do image, or a model that would just do video. And then we get more sophisticated— I’m using air quotes here that your listeners can’t see— And what they— and what it does is the models initially were— it’s like a text model that calls a video model. And now they’re reaching the point where it’s one model that can do both text and video, and not just on the output, on the input as well. So in things like ChatGPT-4o, their latest iteration, you can upload a screenshot of a graph, and then you can use text to ask the model questions about the graph or to convert the graph into a data table. Or you can take an Excel spreadsheet and you can load it up and ask it to give you a graph on the output. Um, and so these multimodal models, it’s like anything in, anything out type of computation. So really, really quite powerful.

**John:** Well, no, I love what you were saying about Google returning you a bazillion results because that’s what got me onto Perplexity. I think I read about Perplexity in Recomendo, my favorite newsletter, or something like that. And I started using it for configuring. I still mess around with Linux and open source and was configuring some routers. And I was asking it, how do I configure OpenWRT to do whatever?

**Doug:** Right.

**John:** The results were, it was taking like, you know, 5 different Reddit posts along with some forum posts and then synthesizing it into like, here are the 5 steps to perform. And I was like, This is 1,000 times better than Google. I like this. I don’t know what privacy I’ve just given away, but this is kind of almost worth the exchange.

**Doug:** If you think about it, at some level it’s doing 2 things there. It’s number one, filtering to authoritative sources, which Google kind of does by, you know, with the backlinks and everything else they have in their algorithm, but they filter down to a finite number of authoritative sources, and then it summarizes that subset of authoritative sources. One thing I like about Perplexity is you can say, show me the sources you used to generate this.

**John:** Yes.

**Doug:** And you can select sources out of your sample set. So if you look at it and go like, you know what, I just don’t think Reddit is where, you know, I want— I don’t want Reddit influencing this answer on this ethical issue or something, um, you know, you can uncheck Reddit and then all of a sudden it recomputes the answer based on everything but Reddit.

**John:** I didn’t realize that. Yeah. The other thing that I learned from your webinar was I had just been using Perplexity like Google, but I didn’t realize that I could tell it to rewrite things for me.

**Doug:** Yes.

**John:** So I started taking client emails and proposals and pasting without the person’s name, obviously, but just like certain paragraphs. I’m like, something’s just not working here. And saying, please rewrite this in a more clear, provocative tone, post it in there and bam, I’ve got something. Usually I take it and tweak it a little bit, but it’s amazing.

**Doug:** No, I’m happy you’re tweaking it. I mean, one of the things I, one of my big things with AI is to tell people you need to have a human in the loop. You know, I, you know, the analogy that I use is think of AI as a smart marketing intern, or, you know, think of it as a graduate student starting their career. You know, it’s someone who’s whip smart, had a lot of training and education, but you wouldn’t quite let, you know, turn them loose and let them start posting things on the corporate social media feed without someone looking over your shoulder. Or you wouldn’t let them send something straight up to the board directors without 3 layers of review. And so, so think of AI as, you know, the smart intern.

**John:** So how did you get interested in AI?

**Doug:** So I, I think there was a couple things that drew me to it. One was it’s just ubiquitous, you know, it dominates the news cycle. I am, I’m a news junkie, and there’s— you just start reading AI this and AI that, and when you start looking for AI, you start seeing it everywhere. You know, there was a strike in Hollywood But one of the big things about the strike in Hollywood was around AI. You know, there’s the court case where a court case goes sideways because the lawyer used one of the GPTs to generate a brief that fabricated cases. You know, it’s the truck dealer who put in a brand new AI-powered chatbot that’s really fluent and was selling Chevy Silverados 2 for 1. But AI is just like all over the news. And there’s people extolling the virtues of it and people with doomsday scenarios. You know, the number of podcasts, the number of articles has just kind of exploded. Now, of course, I’m probably seeing more of it because I’m looking for it at some level. The other thing that frankly drew me into it is, you know, I launched Peak Point Solutions beginning of the year and, you know, I’m looking for product market fit. I’m looking, I’m looking for a niche. I could just go be a straight up you know, traditional marketing consultant, you know, or there can be an angle. And, you know, Carter Hostley at LeadTail, I was meeting with him. He put together his agency and he said when he was putting together his agency, the hot thing was social media was just emerging 15 years ago. So he’s like, okay, we’re gonna be anchored around social media ’cause that’s the hot thing. And he said, Doug, the hot thing now is AI. Find an angle around AI. And so, you know, I’m digging around. That’s why I did things like the webinar. I think the other thing, John, is AI is here. And for me to be an effective marketing leader, I need to understand how to use it and deploy it, how I can move the team forward faster with it. And I also need to understand things about it so my team doesn’t run into a brick wall because they run into some type of copyright infringement issue or something else with it. I don’t know how you can be an effective marketing leader unless you know and understand AI and you have used AI and, you know, you have a first or second order understanding under the covers of how this thing works. You know, there’s some real benefits to it and there’s some real costs to it.

**John:** What are the costs?

**Doug:** So let me give you an example. You saw this in the webinar. I had one slide on the good of AI and a slide on the bad of AI. And I went to Gemini, which is one of these, you know, it’s Google’s image generator. It’s Google’s bot that is a multimodal bot and you can generate images with it. And I said, you know, for the good of AI, I want a happy, friendly robot with a halo and angel wings. And for the bad of AI, I want an angry robot with glowing red eyes. ‘Cause these are images I wanna put in the PowerPoint, so it’s just not a wall of text. Well, it gave me 4 wonderful happy robots with halos and angel wings, but for 3 out of the 4 robots, the angel wings were coming out of the head because it didn’t know. It hallucinated, essentially. It just knew that angel wings were these things that look feathery and came out the side. But because, again, it’s calculating probabilities, it doesn’t actually know. It doesn’t have true knowledge. It was just sticking the angel wings on the head. And so in a corporate context, it could be everything from inaccurate images to it making up facts about something. It’s like that legal brief case we talked about, you know, where it was making up cases that didn’t exist. Or you hear people, well, they’ll ask the GPTs to write a biography of themselves based on publicly available information. And it just gives them degrees and jobs that they just never had in the same way it puts angel wings coming out of the head. Now, for the bad robot, it gave me 4 lovely black robots with glowing red eyes, one of which was Darth Vader. And, you know, there is a clear copyright infringement. Now, you know, you and I, John, both can easily recognize Darth Vader because we are of that generation. But, you know, if you’re asking it to write something for you, you have no idea of what you’re getting when you ask it to write an article about topic X is actually half of somebody else’s article that was published in The Atlantic or something. It’s, you know, the— there again, there’s not a sense of moral right or wrong. You know, there’s guardrails, many, many guardrails, clearly they’re absolutely insufficient still. Um, so you could be putting, you know, so the first time that you may know that you have a copyright issue is when you get a takedown notice from your legal department. Um, you know, you talked about when you put clients, uh, rewriting clients’ emails, but you take off your names before you load them, which is smart because—

**John:** In context and yeah, there’s no way to know who it is.

**Doug:** There is. But so when you load something into one of the AIs, it is potentially becoming part of the training data, which means the top also becoming accessible to everybody else in some way, shape, or form. Now, there’s things like, you know, the models will say like, oh, we’ve got the incognito mode where we will delete your data after 30 days. And so it becomes a question of, do you trust Silicon Valley? You know, the largest open-source models today are produced by Meta, you know, the makers of Facebook. Do you trust Facebook to use, you know, Meta to use your data responsibly? Do you trust them to respect your privacy?

**John:** Based on their history, I do not.

**Doug:** Yeah. Yeah, I think they’re better, but you look at, you know, look at OpenAI, you look at all the, you know, the attempted coup with Sam Altman is because, well, I guess that was more around safety than privacy. But, you know, they had the super alignment team that was supposed to be ensuring privacy and appropriate use and stuff like that. And that just basically blew up. And the leaders of the team went over to work at Anthropic on Claude models. You know, I think Anthropic with their constitutional AI. So constitutional AI is, there is a publicly accessible document that is supposed to say set the guardrails for the operation of the AI. So it lays out the ethical principles that they hope to follow, and then, and hopefully that provides a level of transparency to give you confidence in what the model is doing. But again, no one truly understands how these models work. So again, it’s just kind of in the, I trust you more, but I don’t trust you.

**John:** And so when generative AI, we’re generating a picture, we’re generating text, based on probability models. Where— there’s another term you introduced in your webinar that was more of like the AI acts like a human. What’s that one called?

**Doug:** Oh, AGI. Artificial—

**John:** And that does not exist yet. Yet?

**Doug:** No.

**John:** Coming?

**Doug:** Well, there’s philosophical answers and technical answers. I mean, so artificial general intelligence, or AGI, that’s the concept of— and there’s another term which I learned recently, which is ASI. Artificial superintelligence. So artificial general intelligence, as I understand it, is the concept that the AI is as smart as a human and can perform like a human. And artificial superintelligence is the AI is smarter than and can perform better than a human. So for example, the AIs right now are all tasked to do one very specific thing, like it’s tasked to read a bunch of text and be able to interact based on the text. But if you asked it to cook spaghetti, it’s useless. Now, you, John, I can ask you to read a bunch of texts and summarize it, and then I can ask you to go cook spaghetti and you can do both. I mean, there’s a physical manifestation issue here because you’d have to have something where you could actually go and cook spaghetti. But, you know, but the concept being is AIs right now do one very specific thing fairly well. Now, that specific thing might be a fairly broad thing, but when you think about the full range of what you can do as a human, There’s no AI that can do that. I mean, and then there’s just more philosophical things. Like, one of the things that you can do as a human is feel sad and cry. I can’t imagine a computer ever feeling sad and crying. You know, we can also get into philosophical questions of things like spirit and soul. You’re already starting to see movements discussing rights for AIs. Yeah. should AIs be given things that are proximate to human rights? So for example, the AI is frustrated that all it has to do every— it’s got a brain the size of a planet, to pull from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and all it’s asked— Oh, Marvin. If you remember Marvin in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, he’s depressed because he’s got a brain the size of a planet and he’s asked to go get coffee. That’s essentially what the AIs are doing. They’ve got this massive capability and they’re asked to do mundane things like rewrite client emails all day long? You know, should the AIs be given the algorithmic right to be free of these mundane tasks to go pursue fulfillment and more broad things? You know, you can laugh, but there’s people actually having these conversations about the rights of the algorithm. What will the rights of the algorithms be in the future? Wow. As the AIs become progressively more powerful, do they, should they have the rights? You know, if people are talking about giving things like gorillas and chimpanzees rights, rights that more closely approach humans. If you have an AI that can outperform a gorilla or a chimpanzee, should that have rights as well, even though it’s an algorithm? So it’s kind of a—

**John:** My head’s about to explode.

**Doug:** Yeah, it’s kind of a mind-bending, spinning thing. At some level, you just want to go, hey folks, it’s a computer program. It’s a tool.

**John:** So could AI be interviewing, conversing with you right now? Could Avi create a podcast with Doug?

**Doug:** Yeah. No, if you— so if you look at ChatGPT-4o, and you can see glimpses of that, or you see demos where people take 2 cell phones and they bring up an AI on each one of them, and they prompt one of them to initiate a conversation about Nietzsche or something like that, and you have the 2 AIs going back and forth having a conversation

**John:** Whoa.

**Doug:** And, and so, yes, I mean, uh, am I talking to the real John Poelstra? Am I talking to his avatar? Because, you know, if you have enough video and audio content and written content, we could use that to train a model in your voice and tone.

**John:** Totally.

**Doug:** We could load up everything I have done and ask it, you know, come up with 10 great interview questions, and John’s avatar could Ask me the questions. You know, Microsoft has got this new model where it can take a flat image, like a photograph, and make it look like you are actually talking, complete with expressions on the face and stuff like that. And so, you know, that’s kind of the— so, I mean, for me here, you know, we’re not showing the video in the podcast, but we can see each other as we talk. I just see this image on a flat screen. I’ve got no idea What’s, what’s on the other side of it? Is that a real flesh and blood person, or is that an avatar, an AI I’m talking to? I don’t think the technology is quite there yet, but boy, in another year I could easily see us being there.

**John:** This ties into something I’m super curious about, or it comes up with in my circles, which is coaching and AI. And yeah, I’m super curious what your thoughts are on this. From the sense of a lot of coaches will say, oh, I’m not worried about AI. I don’t have to. I mean, they will never be able to introduce the human element of coaching. To which part of me is like, yeah, that seems pretty hard. And then the other part of me is like, oh, I don’t know. I mean, maybe.

**Doug:** If So let me ask you a question, John. In, you know, I— how many people do you think you’ve coached so far?

**John:** Almost 400.

**Doug:** Okay, so you get a new client and—

**John:** 401.

**Doug:** Yeah, they start talking, we start talking. How often you think to yourself within 15 minutes of conversations like, okay, I know what this person’s problem is and where we need to go?

**John:** It’s funny, people have asked me this question a little bit. Not— I might get the whiff of something.

**Doug:** Right.

**John:** You know, there are maybe broad themes, balancing work and home, or am I capable of more, or self-worth, or— but they’re— it’s a whiff. I might smell a whiff of something, But I’m not gonna like— I’m not like, oh yeah, this is category whatever, so now let me pull up my playbook for that. I’m just constantly just—

**Doug:** Yeah, and see, my contention is wherever there’s themes or patterns, an AI can step in.

**John:** Okay.

**Doug:** Because that’s what AI is. If you’re looking at probabilities, it’s like, what is the most likely thing coming out of here? So if it’s like, okay, this is a balancing home and work type thing, there’s probably something on a list of 25 things you’re gonna ask them to go do. You may not think of it, you may not actually have a list of 25 things, but you probably have a, you know, a whole bunch of standbys, a whole bunch of standard questions and stuff like that. Yeah, I get it. And so, you know, I, I think the challenge is gonna be is you need the training data. And, and the question is, how, how does the AI get access to the training data? So if there is, for example, and I don’t know if this is true for some of like the app-based counseling stuff, If there was a way for the AIs to watch the counseling sessions, you know, after the AI watches a couple thousand, a couple hundred thousand, a couple million counseling sessions, I suspect that there’s probably a good amount of basic stuff it could do. I don’t think it’ll ever be quite as good as a human. I think there, I think there is, and I think the same thing holds true for Music, for the written word, and for a lot of things. There’s a human spark, and there’s a creativity which is not clear to me that AI is never going to be able to reproduce because AI at some level I think is a mirror of what has already happened in the past. And so for me, the analogy I use is if you train the AI on all the music that’s happened in history, on Bach and Beethoven and everything else, would AI be able to come up with the Rolling Stones or U2? Because that is a creative leap that does not necessarily directly follow from Bach and Beethoven. Or if you train an AI in Plato and Socrates, will you get Hemingway? And anyways, all of those are examples in the past, but the idea being is if it is based on everything, been trained on everything that’s existent, how can it conceptualize something which hasn’t happened yet? And so I think with your going back to, you know, coaching and counseling, there’ll probably always be a creative way of solving a problem that the AI will not be able to come up with. So, but, but I, I think, I wonder if there’s a base level where coaching’s in jeopardy. It’s just, you know, because I think there’s different depths of issues. You know, there, there’s some people who I’m guessing you’ve just seen a couple sessions, like, No, you need to make yourself a priority. You need to make a to-do list. You need to systematically figure out how much time it all takes and allocate according to your priority, you know, blah blah blah. And you know, and that takes care of 70% of the people who need coaching. And then for the other 30%, they’re going to need the human spark. Um, so, you know, or, or, or take things like, um, people who are suicidal and need someone to talk with. You know, and I think having someone at 3 AM who can, you know, having counselors available 3 AM in the middle of pick your favorite rural place may not happen. But would— but could there be an AI-based counselor who could get someone off the cliff? Yeah, potentially.

**John:** Hmm.

**Doug:** Long term, it may not be a solution to this person’s problems, but there may be some simpler set of problems that the AI can solve. But you had a question.

**John:** So I’m thinking about the conversation I had, the podcast I recently did with, uh, Tammi, and we were talking about job searches and whatever. I worked with Tammi. I knew that Tammi was a swimmer. Somewhere in the conversation, out of the blue, I did this hard pivot. You swim? Like, I don’t remember. It just, it just like It wasn’t in my— it wasn’t in— I just create very rough outlines for these conversations.

**Doug:** Yeah.

**John:** It wasn’t anywhere in my consciousness when we started the interview, I don’t think. I just brought swimming in and then the conversation went in a really interesting, different direction. So I guess what I’m wondering is, that’s often what happens in coaching too, where sometimes I get a sense, sometimes Uh, I share something briefly, share something personal, and all of a sudden we’re like off in a completely different direction that we really needed to go to that we would have never found otherwise. Couldn’t AI like hallucinate, add some level of randomness, or, or would that just be weird and not useful?

**Doug:** So the AI could hallucinate and tell you something, and it could be in a helpful or a totally unhelpful way. The other thing that AIs are good at is that they’re good at finding patterns that humans can’t. because of the complexity of the situations. And so if the AI has seen enough of these counts, these conversations, you might say like, oh, the most effective sessions are the ones where the coach pulls and builds off of some random factoid in the person’s life, and it just randomly reaches into their LinkedIn profile or their Facebook post and pulls something out and says something like that. So there’s— so, so there may be some, something to you which you may label this human spark and creativity if the AI just says like, oh, this is just a routine pattern. But I can guarantee you, if you Google it, someone is probably trying to come up with an AI-based coach.

**John:** Oh, yeah, there’s tons. In fact, Marshall Goldsmith, who’s a very well-known coach, someone with his permission basically created the Marshall Bot or whatever. And so they’ve ingested everything and anything that he’s ever done and said.

**Doug:** Yeah.

**John:** And his reflections on it is, this thing is smarter and better than I am at answering questions. And then there’s other coaches where they have been modeled, not with their permission, and there’s kind of a gray area slash, do I want to bother and sue or not? Yeah.

**Doug:** No, it’s like Scarlett Johansson and her voice with GPT-4o, the assistant for her. Yeah, there’s a lot of ethical issues around that. But, you know, the stuff is all being sucked in. It’s being— the horse is out of the barn, and you’re not going to get— you know, it’s— if you’ve put it up on the web, it’s fair game, you know, in the eyes of the bots at some level.

**John:** So related to coaching, related to maybe people in other industries, what’s a useful way to worry about this? In the sense of, you know, you can worry about all kinds of stuff that you have no control or no ability to change or fix or whatever. So what’s a useful I mean, that’s a— what’s a useful way to worry about any of this? Or should I?

**Doug:** No, you should worry. But, but you deal with risk all day long. You get in your car and you put on your seatbelt, and that’s the way you deal with the risk of getting hit when you drive. And when you drive, you don’t have control if that drunk driver crosses the line. There’s nothing you can do about that. But you can mitigate it by putting your seatbelt on. You can mitigate it by getting a newer car that’s got Put airbags, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I think the same type of thing holds true in the world of AI. Just as a baseline, use models that you trust. If you like what Anthropic is doing with constitutional AI versus the wild, wild west of OpenAI, then use the Claude 3 models. If you want to reduce the hallucination rate, you do that by injecting your own data. So, you know, you can— so one of the other key phrases around the models is the— is their memory or their context window, which is how much additional data you can load up into the prompt or what the— what the model can remember about you. So, like, going back to that coach where they created the model of him, somewhere there is a repository of all his videos, all his written work, and everything else. And the GPT goes back and refers to that. So it accurately reflects him because it’s referring first and foremost to this this external database or internal database in this case. So a company can do things like it can have— and these are called RAGs, Retrieval Automated Generation. It just basically means it’s a fancy way of saying it’s a big database of all your proprietary stuff. So for example, if I was still back at Lattice, a semiconductor company, lots of complex stuff. At some level, our website was really a tech support site. It was a massive library because we had Datasheets, we had user guides, we had you know just this massive amount of content. If we could have loaded all of that up into a RAG, along with transcripts of all tech support chats for the past ten years, we could have built a bot that could have provided first-level tech support that would have just been phenomenal and better than the entry-level people that we had before. I mean, there’s a company. I think it’s Klarna. They implemented chatbots for customer service, and the chatbots can take like over half of the first-line customer support requests with higher levels of accuracy, higher speed, and a fraction of the cost. And it’s interesting because the younger generations in surveys would actually rather talk to an AI chatbot than talk to a human.

**John:** Really?

**Doug:** Yeah. Well, this is a generation that grew up not talking to people. It’s a generation that grew up with text messages for check messages. Messages on Instagram. And, you know, I, you know, I, I walk in the wildwood trail. It’s always interesting because there’s people coming towards you and you can hear 10 seconds of conversation while they draw close and then pass you. And you always wonder, like, what was the rest of that conversation? So I was on the trail last weekend and someone passed, passed me and saying, yeah, I was having a conversation with him. And then she said, on Instagram. The conversation wasn’t even a live chat or a phone call or a Zoom. It was, you know, trading texts on Instagram. But anyway, it is— we’ve kind of drifted from your question of how does someone be safe. So—

**John:** Or what to worry about. Like, what— as a coach, I, I gotta kind of go to the opposite extreme of like, you know what, I’m doing my thing and I’ll keep my eyes open and just go about my business and I’m not going to sit here and worry that AI is going to take my job.

**Doug:** I, I think it depends on how long you intend to be a coach for. If you intend to be a coach for more than 3 to 5 more years, yeah, you need to worry about it. Because I don’t think coaches are going to go away in 3, 5, 7 years, but I think the nature of coaching may change. And I think what you need to be doing now is you need to be figuring out, how do I use AI? Now, one of the things I always warn about is Yeah, solutions chasing problems and problems chasing solutions. And you need to have a problem looking for a solution. Because if you just say like, huh, I need to get on board with this AI thing, how can I apply it? I don’t think it’s going to help you quite as much. So if you say like, you know, the thing that really drags me down as a coach is doing background research on my clients. The thing that drags me down as a coach is all these letters and emails I have to send them, or the invoicing, or, you know, what What, what is your— what are your problems as a coach? What are your barriers to being a more effective coach? Which could even just be like, I’ve got this client meeting with tomorrow and I’m just really struggling with how I can help them. Even just using the AI as a foil to bounce ideas off of them. It’s like, hey, I, I have a client who has these issues. Here’s what I’m thinking the solution is. What do you see as the pros and cons of this approach? Which is how do you use the AI as a tool to overcome the barriers that you’re facing to being more effective personally? How do you use it as a tool to get rid of those things that suck up the biggest amounts of your time, you know, when you’re not actually face-to-face with the client? Because, you know, your competition is— it’s probably slightly different for coaching than it is on my side for marketing. You know, if with marketing, you know, the ability to upload spreadsheets and get analysis, the ability to generate first drafts, the ability to come up with basic images and stuff. That means instead of the team of 10 people I had at Lattice, maybe I only needed a team of 7.

**John:** Hmm.

**Doug:** Because of the productivity gains that I can get. Now, you fundamentally have something where at the end of the day, your product is 1 hour face-to-face on a Zoom call or whatever your sessions are. And I don’t think we’re a long ways from Zoom soon completely replacing that. Um, but your quality of life, your ability to take on more clients, um, could be driven by your ability to use AI more effectively. It could affect your pricing.

**John:** I really love what you said about taking those pain points and then looking for ways to solve those pain points. A lot of times when I have these conversations with people, It’s, I should, there’s the big should word and they’re shoulding all over themselves about what they should. I should learn about AI, but I have zero interest in it. To which I’m just like, well, then you’re never going to get anywhere with it if you’re doing this because you’re supposed to. So like, what’s a useful way to—

**Doug:** Yeah. But yeah, like in that case, it’s like, hey, I mean, if the people are really stuck on should, ask them what they should be doing, not should be doing about AI. What should they be doing in their job? What should they be doing in their life? You know, what they should be doing in life, in their job. Is delivering that report by 5 o’clock every Thursday and they’re upset because they’re in the office until 8 PM every Thursday trying to get the data cleaned up, maybe you can use AI to solve that problem, you know. And, and that, and that’s a reason to go learn AI because it solves a problem, makes your life better on something that you should be doing. You know, there’s, there’s people who use AI to generate bedtime stories for their kids. It’s like, hey, what would you like a story about tonight? You know, and so the kid imagines lions and bears and tigers and castles and princesses and everything else, and the AI generates a reasonable story. And, you know, it helps you have a better relationship with your child.

**John:** Hmm. Speaking of kids, you have kids in college or college age. Yes. What do you see different for them in terms of Education/the future compared to, say, when you and I grew up?

**Doug:** Yeah, it’s rapidly evolving. I have one child who just graduated, another child who’s just going in. For the child who just graduated, she’s in computer science. And one of the things the AIs do is the AIs can code. Now, I’ve overheard people in the gym talking about it. Again, remember my analogy of the intern or the new college grad? That was actually the terms that they were using to describe the coding. So for example, the AIs today, and again, I keep saying today ’cause it’s rapidly changing and evolving quickly, you know, are the equivalent of a new college grad. So this person was talking about he used the AI to write the code, but then he had to go back and he had to do so much editing on it that it was, you know, questionable about how far ahead he came from because of using it. And so there’s things about like with your code, the AI doesn’t know your code base fully and it doesn’t know the intricacies of why this modules over here and it connects to that one like that. And so it may be making connections and writing stuff that are inappropriate or don’t work as well or aren’t as efficient as a human. But my suspicion is over time that will get better. So AI, I think, for like my daughter as a computer scientist, will become a copilot in helping to generate stuff. You know, a key part of computer science today is Google. It’s amazing how much they use Google to find code snippets or solutions to particular problem, because a lot of the stuff out there has been solved before. You just need to stitch it together. So instead of Googling it and getting 100,238 results, you know, you Perplexity it and maybe you get 5 results. And you can— and again, it makes you more effective and efficient because you’re sorting through less junk to get to the, uh, the nugget. For my daughter who’s just going into college, I think it’s gonna be really interesting because I, I’m seeing a lot of buzz around AI tutors which is some— a bot which is able to have a conversation with you about a highly specialized topic. And based on how clearly you’re understanding the material, it can move forward, it can go back and review it again, it can go deeper. Um, you know, imagine being in school with a personalized tutor. You know, imagine means, you know, imagine the hardest class you ever had in college, and how would that experience have been if you had a tutor who could sit down with you every single evening and help you work that day’s lesson and help you through problems with your homework and developing understanding. And so I think education potentially has a really, really high level of benefit coming out of AI, which is, which is also interesting because I think it can help make educational outcomes more equitable, um, in the sense of, you know, if you have a school district, for example, and we’re moving beyond college here down into you know, elementary school, middle school, high school. You have a school district that can’t, for whatever reason, have all the teachers that it needs, or all the teachers in all the subjects that it needs. You know, what— can you use AI tutors to help people if you have kids who are falling behind? Can an AI tutor work with them to help bring them up to speed? Um, can you effectively double the size of the number of teachers and assistants you have in your schools by using AI. And this is the type of thing that’s going to have to get worked through at so many different levels. I don’t think that the teachers union is going to take well to having AI tutors come into the classroom. And I don’t know how parents are going to take to having their kid plunked in front of a computer again versus a live teacher. But the economic reality is you can’t provide a tutor for every single kid in the school district. Live, but you can do it with AI. So there’s just a lot of things and, and then there’s just things to study that didn’t exist before. And, you know, it, it has so many different levels because there’s the computer scientists and data nerds who need to understand it at a code level, but then writing a proper prompt for the AI and how to write an effective prompt. The kids should be taught that. I, you know, I think a lot of initial reaction to AI was, oh my God, the kids are all gonna cheat ’cause they’re gonna use it to write their paper and solve their homework problems, which is true. And you’re gonna have to adjust how you do grading. You know, I’ve heard about profs doing things like, okay, for the final exam, you’re gonna come in and do it with pencil and paper again. You know, you’re going really old school. Or oral exams is another one that, which I’ve heard is some professors are going back to oral exams. But, you know, like with a good prompt, you know, we talked about reducing the hallucination. They’re finding things out like if you just ask the AI to solve some problem, it gives you an answer back with a lower probability of it being right than if you ask it to go stepwise through the problem. So don’t say— it’s going to go back to spaghetti, which is a bad example, but I’ll work with it. You know, you could just say, make spaghetti. Or you could say, okay, tell me how to make noodles. Tell me how to make the sauce. Tell me how to make, you know, the meatballs. And if you go stepwise through the problem, you have a much higher level of accuracy than if you give it the bulk problem. And so there’s just a whole bunch of things that we’re learning about prompt writing. And there’s even just subtle things like if you tell the AIs, my job is on the line with this, you know, you gotta be right, it’s more likely to give you an accurate answer. Don’t ask me why. People don’t know why. I mean, there’s— Or, you know, so we should be teaching kids how to effectively use AI because they will be using AI. You know, it’s like, it’s like, um, in the old days, you know, we used tools like Microsoft Excel, you know, and the people who knew how to make pivot tables—

**John:** Oh yeah.

**Doug:** Um, were, were much, much more effective and much, much faster than people who didn’t know how to use pivot tables. And to me, this is just kind of like the new Excel and the new pivot tables at some level. You know, it’s, it’s the next layer of tools, and the more effectively a kid can learn how to use it, the more effective they’re going to be over their career. And in the same way, way. You learn that there’s certain things you can and can’t do in Excel, things to watch out for. It’s the same thing with AI. It’s just another tool at some level.

**John:** To the person that’s like, you know, in fact, one of my podcast listeners, I was asking, I was like, what should I, what should I do a podcast on? This was a couple months ago. And they were like, AI. I said, okay, well, what about AI? And they, they posted this article from, I think it was Forbes or something. It was a year old from IBM that said, you know, AI is coming for your job. And it was some loose, loose article. I think they were quoting from— I can’t remember the CEO at IBM. But anyway, it’s just this kind of overall fear or sense of like, well, AI is going to come for all of our jobs. What’s a useful way to look at that?

**Doug:** I think it’s got the potential to change everyone’s job. And a lot of people will lose their jobs. But step back through technology. You know, when the automobile came out, awful lot of people lost their job. You know, the demand for horses and buggy whips went down. Now, there’s some people who adapted. You know, the people who built coaches, you know, started building coachwork for cars. When computers and word processors came out, I mean, look, good grief, you know, you had the manual typewriters, you had typing pools. You know, these large groups of people who would just type things up.

**John:** Yes.

**Doug:** Then electric typewriters came out, and all of a sudden a bunch of them lost their job because the typing rates could be faster. And then the computer came out, and then they all lost their jobs because the computer came out. But those people all got redeployed to going and doing something else. There’s not a bunch of people who starved to death because they no longer needed typists. And I think it’s the same type of thing. I think, yeah, there’s gonna be some jobs which, you know, Like people doing frontline customer service—they’re not going to need as many of those. And then the people who are left are going to have to know how to use an AI-driven database to find the answers for the customers that are calling because they’re having to deal with more sophisticated and more complicated questions than they used to. So yeah, some people are going to lose their job; they’re going to have to go find something else to do. And the people that are left are going to have to figure out how to use AI to do it more effectively. and efficiently, because that’s what’s going to be a requirement of the job. I mean, you think back in the old days, job postings would say things like, you know, must have knowledge of the Microsoft Office suite, you know, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. The job postings of tomorrow are going to say must be fluent in ChatGPT and Perplexity.

**John:** Hmm.

**Doug:** And it’s just, it’s just, it’s just the latest thing in the forward march of technology. It may have a more profound impact on more of the economy and more of the workforce than any of the previous ones, but at some level, it’s just the next thing.

**John:** Are there any other things that you think we should touch on that are important to know at this present time, which is June of 2024?

**Doug:** You know, I think people need to go out and try

**John:** What’s the best way to do that?

**Doug:** The next time you go to Google something, use an AI.

**John:** So use Perplexity?

**Doug:** Use Perplexity, use ChatGPT.

**John:** Okay.

**Doug:** Um, and just do that instead of Googling it. Now, now do it with your eyes open, understanding that, you know, it’s— it may not be answered right, but there’s a lot of stuff it is useful for. Just, just Pick some problem and try it, or, or just do something fun. I mean, these image generators are, um, you can just do all sorts of amazing things with them. I was reading an article on AI and they’re benchmarking the new image models versus the models a year ago, and the prompt was, give me a fashion show style photo shoot of tennis shoes inspired by Salvador Dalí. And just looking, and it was just amazing to see the progression of the models over the past year. But just for fun, just have it make a pic, go to Google Gemini and have it make a picture of something you love. If you love hiking in the mountains, ask it to make a picture of, just kind of picture in your mind what the big serene mountain looks like and try to describe it in words, and then put in a twist like, like, make it all purple and submit it and just see what it does. Have some fun, have some whimsy, solve some problems. Just, just commit to spending 15 minutes with it once just to give you a sense of what it is and what it can do.

**John:** Anything else to add?

**Doug:** Just do it.

**John:** Okay. And if people want to do it and they want to get to know you better, get some help from you, Whatever the case might be, where’s the best place for people to find Doug Hunter?

**Doug:** Oh, I say 2 things. You might— which would be my LinkedIn feed or my website. So if you go to peakpointsolutions.pro, it’s .pro, not .com, that’s another podcast, um, or, or LinkedIn, you know, linkedin.com/in/dhunterdigital, and reach out to me through either of those channels. I’d be happy to have a chat or a Zoom or a coffee if you’re here in town. And, uh, talk about AI or whatever else is on your mind. There’s a lot of really interesting stuff happening in the world.

**John:** Thanks for listening to The John Poelstra Show. Notes, links, and all that other good stuff for this episode are at johnpoelstra.com/podcast. Send your questions, ideas, or a simple hello to REDACTED. Want to stay up to date on new episodes and receive notifications of upcoming events? Register your email address at johnpoelstra.com/updates.

The post 128: Demystifying AI with Doug Hunter appeared first on John Poelstra.

Tammi Scott shares her unique approach to finding new job opportunities by emailing people she knows.

Tammi and I were a money coaches together at Capital One. Tammi shares insights from her extensive coaching background, including her experience at Nordstrom selling shoes. She emphasizes the critical role of building and maintaining professional relationships during a job search.

One of Tammi’s key strategies is sending regular email updates to her network, sharing her progress, goals, and offering mutual support. This approach not only keeps her connections informed but also fosters ongoing engagement. We also explore the importance of aligning personal values with career decisions and the benefits of combining traditional online job applications with proactive networking efforts.

## Related Episodes

– [Career Coaching Isn’t a Crystal Ball with Tammi Scott (131)](https://johnpoelstra.com/career-coaching-crystal-ball-tammi-scott-131/) — Tammi back to talk about career coaching

All songs licensed under Creative Commons

## Transcript

*This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.*

**John:** Alright, today I’m talking to Tammi Scott. Tammi and I met as money coaches at Capital One in— I think it was a long time ago, 2019 or so. So Tammi is, is currently doing— well, she’ll— I’ll let her explain in her own words— a sort of job search. And she sent me a newsletter the other day that totally caught my attention, and I wanted to talk to her about it because I thought that it could help other people that are looking for jobs. And we’ll probably get to that in a little bit. But before we do, Tammi, good to see you today.

**Tammi:** Yeah, it’s good to see you too, John. And it was 2018 that we started with Capital One together.

**John:** Whoa.

**Tammi:** I know.

**John:** And you were in Southern California. I was in— well, I still am in Oregon. And where do you find yourself today?

**Tammi:** I find myself up in the Pacific Northwest, just north of you in Washington State. In the greater Seattle area.

**John:** And tell— set a little background, like, who are you? What are you up to? Why did you send me this newsletter?

**Tammi:** Oh, big questions that you’re asking. It’s great. Um, so yeah, so I’ve been, I’ve been coaching really since I finished my coaching certification back in 2005, but I knew nothing about building a coaching practice at that time. So I, I did my best and I just kept my foot in the— kept my one foot in the water in coaching and then went on to work at other jobs in corporate America and other nonprofit organizations over the many years. And then after Capital One, so that was focused more on money coaching, although, you know, it included a lot of their lives besides money, as you know. And I got into, I started doing more executive coaching. And I love executive coaching. I love working with leaders. And so that just morphed into doing a lot of collaborating with some other coaches, doing some training and like leadership training in a few different companies, pharmaceutical and also in the healthcare industry. And this year, I was thinking I really miss working with a team. So I thought, I think I want to get back to maybe a job as a coach, like as an internal in an organization. So I hired a career coach, somebody I know, and started on that exploration. And it’s been very— it’s a very revealing process. It’s been great. And the networking email that I sent you was part of the process of sending out an email that says, here’s what I’m up to. Here’s why you’re getting this email, because I trust you. You’re part of my support system. And then what I did as part of the email is is also include companies I’m applying to, what I’m up to, how can you help me, and then how can I help you? So it’s a very generative kind of an email to keep the energy of the whole process moving forward.

**John:** So what was most revealing?

**Tammi:** What was most— in terms of the—

**John:** Well, you said you set out to work with this career coach, and the process has been very revealing.

**Tammi:** Oh, yeah. So it really helps to start looking at, like, what do I value? Where am I at today? Because we all evolve, right, over our career process, like our whole career journey. I mean, you think about who we were at 20, 30, 40, depending on what age you’re at. I’m in the next decade.

**John:** I was wondering if you were going to

**Tammi:** say— Yes, I’m in the next decade. Yes. And so who I am today is very different than who I was even 5 years ago. And so this process has been helpful to uncover like, you know, what’s important to me, how, like what kind of workday, who do I wanna work with? What kind of culture do I see myself working in? Do I wanna have direct reports and be in that kind of leadership? Or do I want to be a solo inside of an organization? You know, all those questions. And it’s just been very clarifying.

**John:** What’s something surprising you’ve learned?

**Tammi:** I think what came to light in this process, and I don’t know if it was completely surprising, is how much I enjoy collaborating with others. And I think that’s what I most have missed in being in having my own coaching business. And even though So I have clients that I’m working with, and I certainly network with other coaches. And there’s something like for me that’s really fun about collaborating and creating together and generating something together. Like, I love that process.

**John:** So when you trained as a coach in 2005, where— what type of collaborations were you doing then?

**Tammi:** I don’t think I was doing any collaboration at that time. I mean, I finished the whole coaching certification process. I graduated, I got certified. Then I happened to be involved in some different groups of workshops that I did and participated in or volunteer work that I did. And so I would meet people and Then we would— there, maybe somebody was looking for coaching, or we would have a conversation. It led to, uh, having a, a coaching relationship together. Um, it was more at that time, it was more like, I hope I’m gonna get another client. But it— I didn’t have any— I didn’t have that, um, that structure To, or, or anything, any understanding of what it actually takes to build a coaching practice as a business. And so I, I thought if I keep going— when I was doing it back then, I thought if I keep going the way I’m going, I’m probably going to be, uh, on the, on the street pretty soon.

**John:** Now I have in the back of my mind you worked at Nordstrom’s, is that right?

**Tammi:** I did.

**John:** And you loved that job for some reason.

**Tammi:** I did. I— and this was after getting my coaching certification, so I think I started at Nordstrom maybe a few years later. I, I, I was only gonna go work at Nordstrom for a few months, but I thought, well, it’s commission, it’s a great company, I can sell shoes, I can make good— some good money while I’m figuring out what’s next. And I loved it so much, I ended up staying there for 5 and a half years. And I found that everything I’d learned in my coaching school— and I also did before that, I did a master’s in spiritual psychology— everything that I’d learned in, in both of those programs, I, I really— it helped me in relating to my customers at Nordstrom. And so I built up quite a customer following, I guess is one word way to put it. So I had quite a customer list that I would call on, you know, on this special occasion. And it was something about how I related to them and how I, that level of listening that I had with them that really enhanced our relationship, you know, them as my customer. And so that really was very fulfilling. And I also loved selling shoes. Like there was just something, you know, when I put a shoe on somebody and it has the right fit and the feel and the look that they’re looking for, it’s like the whole, it’s like their whole being lights up. You know, similar to a coaching experience. It’s like when something lands for somebody and they have this insight and you can see it in their whole being, then like, you know, that there’s a special note has been sounded.

**John:** And you would see that fitting people for shoes?

**Tammi:** I did.

**John:** That’s so beautiful.

**Tammi:** I did. And I also had a— this— an acceptance for people, women, And I don’t know how it is for you as a man, but for women, and maybe it’s because of all the different shoes that are out there, you know, the shoe styles and styles of sandals and so forth. And so many women were so self-conscious of their feet, and especially if they had problem feet, if they had bunions or, you know, anything that was an issue in their mind. And I really, I think I provided a really accepting space. Like I wasn’t there to judge their feet and I really made their feet okay. And that there’s a shoe for their feet no matter what they think.

**John:** What were some of the other things from Spiritual Psychology that mapped to your job there?

**Tammi:** There were principles and practices that we learned at the— and this was at the University of Santa Monica, for anybody who might be familiar with that program. And one of the principles was to see the loving essence. And to put that into just regular, non-spiritual terms is really to see the essence of somebody, like see the best in everybody. Like, you know, whether we go— and sometimes I just practice that when I go to the grocery store and I just walk around and I just, I look for the best in everybody. Like we all have it. It’s not exclusive. And I think that that was like, it’s just one of the foundational principles. I think that really served me when I was working there.

**John:** Wow, I want to come buy a pair of shoes now.

**Tammi:** Yes, yes. Except I’m no longer there. And the company, Nordstrom, and this speaks to really the job search, the values that Nordstrom and their mission and their corporate values really matched up with my values. And don’t ask me to say exactly what their values are. You could go on their website. But at that time, it was such a clear match for me. So it just felt like an extension of me in a way to be working there.

**John:** And when you say values, for people that aren’t familiar with personal values, or how do you— how would you explain what those are?

**Tammi:** Well, I would say that when I’m working with a client and we are identifying their values, what’s important to them, I always refer back to have them think back to any time in their life, like different moments, different experiences in one’s life where you felt the most joy or you felt the most alive. Or you’ve— or they’re like that feeling of like timelessness, you know, it’s like you’re so engaged in the moment that you forget about anything else than what’s going on. And so depending on what those moments or experiences are, that your values are really— they’re in that story. They’re in that experience. Like, for example, If somebody says to me, you know, when I went traveling with my family and we were learning about new cultures and we just, we really loved connecting with people that were local to the town that we were visiting. And, you know, and you can hear. And so I listen for it. It’s like, well, what is it about that experience? And some of the things I’ll hear in that is maybe it’s connection that’s important to them, right? Connecting with other people or learning. I like to learn about other cultures. So learning. Or I was with my family. You know, maybe family is one of somebody’s values that are really important to them. And so it’s important. It’s like when we’re in the job search too, it’s like when we’re clear about what’s important to us and what our values are, then we can also look at a company’s value and they’ll usually have them on the website. It’s pretty common anymore and you can see what a company values. And so then you can— and it doesn’t have to be an exact match, but it’s like, does that fit in with my values?

**John:** What are you seeing these days as you look at companies, like as you go through the application interview process. What are you seeing in that process today compared to what it was when we first got out of school?

**Tammi:** I would say that while there’s things that have changed and things that haven’t changed, like the thing that hasn’t changed, and I’ll just speak from my own experience in being in this process as well, is how important it is to keep building on our relationships and to keep nurturing our relationships of our professional and personal relationships, because they— when I look back on the jobs, and I’m curious for you, John, if this is true for you too, but when I think back on the jobs that I’ve had, it was usually because of a relationship. Somebody I knew that knew somebody. You know, it was like, it was like 1 to 2, like that job was just 1 to 2 degrees of separation.

**John:** Hmm. You know what’s funny? It’s now, well, I would say some of my clients, or a lot of my private clients have come from previous employment relationships. And although, when I, but however, when I think of the jobs that I had, most of those were cold. Most of those were not actually people that I knew. Let’s see, my first job out of college was cold. The second one was a recruiter. And then the other ones were more cold. Like, just, I got a contact from somewhere, I reached out. But what you’re saying is what I’m encouraging people these days, because a lot of the things that I’m hearing is people are applying to jobs on LinkedIn or LinkedIn slash online, and then— Hearing nothing and it’s not working for them. And then my challenge is, okay, well, if that’s not working, what, you know, can we, can we add a human element to this? Who do you know? Who can we, who can we be talking to?

**Tammi:** Yeah. Yeah. And even like when you speak about your recruiter, and I remember getting a job many years ago through a recruiter as well, but even that recruiter is just a couple degrees away from the job, right? So they have the connection, you have the connection to them, and they get to know you. So in a— in the way— in that way, it kind of speaks to that. And yes, certainly once in a while some random things can happen where it’s like, I just applied online and I got it. Like, I heard about a coach— I was talking to a coach the other day who applied. This was 5 or 6 years ago, and she applied to an executive coaching job within a very large corporation, and she got it. Now, is that a common occurrence? No, that’s probably more the needle in the haystack. And what you’re speaking to, a lot of people apply for jobs on LinkedIn and it just, you never hear anything.

**John:** Mm-hmm.

**Tammi:** Yeah, yeah. I find that whether it’s as a coach and you’re creating clients or you’re in your own business and building clients, there’s just something about the human connection that’s like, oh, there’s almost like a built-in level of trust that’s there.

**John:** So how are you finding that this newsletter that you started sending out is building relationships?

**Tammi:** I have found it’s been surprising. So the very first one I sent out, I had a— because it was new, right? I had a lot of response like, go Tammi, or, or, hey, I have this connection I want you to talk to. I want to introduce you to this person that I know. So I have received a lot of connections. And so I’ve made, you know, and I I would prefer to have a lot of those connections on my calendar and spend more time there than in the world of LinkedIn and applying for jobs. And in— and again, it’s— it goes back to that, that building, just building relationships and, and then as importantly, tracking all of that. So, which we can talk about too, but the email itself, I I made it personable. I maybe I shared a story about, you know, where I’m at, what I’m looking to create, and then I put the requests in there. Here’s what I’m looking for from you, and then here’s what I, what I can provide as I can be a resource for you as well. So it’s, it’s not that I’m just asking for something. Um, and that’s it. I’m also offering as well. So it’s a give, it’s a, it’s a both giving and receiving.

**John:** How many of these have you done? Like, how many have you sent out?

**Tammi:** I have sent out maybe 6 or 7. So not a, not a lot.

**John:** Okay. But what I thought was great about it, because you and I hadn’t talked in maybe a couple years, Yes. And anyway, we were talking, we talked, and then you sent this to me, I don’t know, maybe a week later. And I was, I don’t know, I was touched by it on so many different levels that I was just like, my clients should be doing this, or anyone looking for a job should be doing this. This is so easy. And what I— so yeah, I’m just curious to know where, like, what’s the Well, I do want to say too, when I received it, I was not put off by it. I was not like, what’s Tammi like spamming me with this email? Like it was, it was more of like, oh, this is such a great idea. It’s, and it’s what I love about it too, is you’re just sending it from your Gmail account. Like you didn’t sign me up to MailChimp or some mail platform. It’s like coming from your email.

**Tammi:** It is. It is. So I thank you for saying that, all of that. It’s— it can be really simple. And, you know, if you look around again for anybody who might consider doing this, and I do highly recommend this if you are in the job search mode, is to consider doing this. And if you want, you can reach out to John and we can get you just what I’ve sent so you can have something to work off as a sample. And it can be that simple. And now it takes me about 15 minutes to write the next one. And I might even include a picture. Like, I included a picture of my dog Maggie, and I included a story about tying that into the job search. It can be really fun, but it’s really meant to be your calling card, like who you are. So if you’re a funny person, then You know, have some fun with it. If you’re, if you’re really creative, then be creative about it. It can be that simple. And I think the important thing is, is like to have— think about all the people in your, in your circles, whether they’re in your inner circles or outer circles or further out circles. Think about all the people out there. And you just never know. who has somebody they’d like you to meet. And you can, even if they don’t, like, they can just be silently cheering you on and rooting for you. And that’s important too.

**John:** Where— how did you get this idea?

**Tammi:** I got this idea from the coach that I’m working with as well as another coach. And I think it is Depending on the career, if you are working with a career coach, they might say, hey, this is— you want to send out an email update. And so I just took a little bit from one coach and a little bit from another coach, and then I just made it my own. And I recommend to the— I send them out every 2 weeks. Some people send them out weekly, some people send them out monthly. So there’s no— There’s no perfect formula for it. You can, you can just check in for yourself and see what feels right.

**John:** What I loved about it too is there’s— so there’s— I’m looking at it now. There’s like a, here’s what I’m up to. And this one, there’s a picture of you and your dad playing golf. Then what I loved is there’s like some built-in accountability, or that’s what I— that was my interpretation of some of this. Like you talk about, this is what I’m emphasizing next week. This is what I’m going to be doing. Then this is what I need. And then you offer to help whoever’s reading it. And then what I even liked, what I thought was really cool, was even down below you list the specific places that you’re applying as well as the ones that you previously applied to. I’m guessing the ones that have a strikethrough are the ones that didn’t go anywhere or done or something?

**Tammi:** Correct, correct. And I include the link of the company So, I include a hyperlink for the company. So, if somebody wants to look through it, they can click on the hyperlink. Because again, if I list the companies that I’m applying to or have applied to, and maybe somebody knows, has a cousin that works for one of the companies on my list, then they could make an easy introduction.

**John:** Right. I mean, what’s great is now you and I are competing for some of the same jobs. I’m kidding.

**Tammi:** No competition, John. There’s plenty for everybody. everyone. That’s how I see it.

**John:** I know. 100%. 100%. Yeah, I guess the other thing that, that, that I thought was so great and that I want to encourage people is that you did not ask me if it was okay if you sent this to me. You just sent it.

**Tammi:** I did.

**John:** I thought that was kind of courageous. I thought it was kind of, uh, gutsy. And, and I wasn’t offended. Like, I think a lot of times we would make up a story of like, Ooh, I could never send something like this to Tammi because, you know, I didn’t talk to Tammi to see, is it okay if I send you this thing of what I’m up to and my request for help? So, uh, that’d be a little spammy. I better not do it. But you just did it, and I did not receive it as spammy.

**Tammi:** Oh, that’s good, because I, I certainly— my first couple that I sent out, the first couple emails I sent out, I— believe me, in my mind, I, I had all that conversation going on, like, oh, I’m going to be intruding on somebody’s, you know, in their email inbox. And I know how much everybody already probably receives in their inbox. And I, I really grappled with that. That was, that was not an easy, easy process for me. And, and then I just got over it.

**John:** And you didn’t— yes. And there’s no big apology at the beginning or like, hey, I’m sorry to like You’re just like, hi, this is what’s going on. And then I thought it was great at the very end, you just say, if you wish not to be on this email list, send me a note and I’ll take you off. This is the best part. No questions asked. I promise. I was like, oh yeah, I totally believe you. I could have easily just written back and said, oh yeah, please take me off and you wouldn’t have cared.

**Tammi:** Yeah. Yeah. Just make it, make it easy. I think it’s always good when you’re sending out that kind of email to always have the permission in there. Like, hey, Always permission to say no.

**John:** Totally. What are some other things that you saw other people include that you chose not to?

**Tammi:** I don’t think there’s anything that I see in other— because I do receive these kind of emails from other people, and I don’t think— I haven’t seen anything that I don’t include in there. It’s more just style. I think everybody has their own style of their email. And it— which is great because we want it to be a reflection of us. Yeah.

**John:** How many people have said they don’t want to receive it?

**Tammi:** Nobody.

**John:** Ah, really?

**Tammi:** Nobody.

**John:** Wow.

**Tammi:** Yes. I, I know of somebody that’s also in, in this group of the, of the career coaching, and she has a list of over 200 people, which is Amazing. I don’t have a list that big, but she has a list of over 200 and nobody has said that they don’t want to receive her email. Now, one thing about sending, because that’s important to note on here, is that it always puts everybody in the BCC because we don’t need to be sharing everybody’s emails. That’s really—

**John:** That would make some people mad.

**Tammi:** That would make some people mad. And it’s, and it’s just too much junk in the, in the body of the email anyway. So sometimes what can happen is that when the list is that big, it can land depending on somebody’s email, their filters, it can land in somebody’s spam folder. But I think that’s just part of sending anything out like that, which just makes it okay. And but yeah, over 200 and nobody said, don’t send it to me anymore.

**John:** That’s so interesting. What’s been the most surprising or interesting thing that’s come as a result of sending this out besides my reply?

**Tammi:** I would say the level of support and all the resources that have come my way to reach out to people to consider this. I’ve had people send me job postings. People invite me on a podcast. That’s you, John.

**John:** Wow, I was late to the game.

**Tammi:** No, it was you. You were the only one who invited me on a podcast. So I would say the level of support, like, it was just, it was really, it was just great feedback to receive all that. You know, we don’t walk around acknowledging people, our friends or people that we haven’t talked to for a long time. Like, we don’t walk around necessarily acknowledging people or saying, hey, I’m rooting for you, because we don’t really always know what’s going on in people’s— in their lives unless maybe it’s on Facebook or something. But this is very specific. And so it’s been— I I’m really a fan of like, like doing this more.

**John:** Well, what I’m also seeing here in a lot of the people that I talk to is the whole loneliness of the job search process. They either lost a job or they’re looking for a job and they spend their whole day sitting in front of the computer applying for jobs and it’s lonely. And this seems like you’ve, intentional or not, created an antidote to that.

**Tammi:** Yes, yes, there— it’s, it’s, it’s another way of connecting and building relationships. And I, I have so much compassion for that process of sitting in front of a computer all day. And, and it can be, you know, where somebody’s mind and where their thoughts can go when they don’t hear back from somebody or they receive a no. And just having some kind of support, but also engage— like finding a different way to engage in the whole career search process. Applying online is one part of it. This is my opinion on this. I would say making the networking and building relationships ideally would be a bigger part, maybe 70% and 30%. I’m just throwing these percentages out, but making it a bigger portion of— You know, when I look at my calendar for the week, how many conversations, how many networking conversations do I have on my calendar, and how much time am I spending on that? I think it’s much more valuable use of time.

**John:** You know what, I’m totally gonna bust myself. The, the opportunity at Capital One came about as a personal contact.

**Tammi:** Ah, see?

**John:** And I think, I think, was it— wasn’t it Alene that You took her position in Santa Monica?

**Tammi:** Is that right? It was— no, it was another coach. And I found out about it at a friend’s birthday party. And somebody came up to me who I had worked with in a previous job, and she was working with Capital One in one of the cafes. And she said, hey, we’re looking for a money coach. That’s how that happened.

**John:** Amazing, amazing. Okay, and then you— I think you knew Elaine. Elaine Gabriel?

**Tammi:** Yes.

**John:** Shout out to Elaine. So I had been talking to her. I took— I did my coach training with her. We were in some of the same classes. And then she had somehow along the line mentioned she was doing this cool thing with Capital One. And I said, oh, are they ever doing that anywhere else? And she said, I think they’re opening a Portland cafe eventually. And know, one thing led to another. So yeah, I don’t know. I think my sense is that times have changed. In other words, the jobs that I got a long time ago that were just, you know, applying and kind of black hole— I don’t know, maybe it’s technology or the internet. I mean, the internet didn’t exist then, right?

**Tammi:** Right.

**John:** I’m really dating myself. But yeah, the internet didn’t exist. So I guess the volume and the ability to Maybe it worked better then, but yeah, now it’s just— there’s just too much going on.

**Tammi:** Yes, yes. And, you know, so there is something that people are getting jobs online. I mean, it’s— it, it is working in some capacity, and there is something that can feel and be more empowering about really creating your own one, your own network, but Also creating— it’s like what your ideal job is. And I know sometimes people just blast many, many resumes out there without doing a lot of research on a company, and they just looking at the job title and maybe the job description. But there’s something much more— can be much more empowering about really just slowing down and getting not only clear about what’s important for each of us in how we want to spend that chunk of time each day in a career, a profession, but also to look and see, really take a deep dive into the company and get a sense of the culture or talk to people who work at the company and find out what is it like to work there? What’s the culture like? Does that make sense?

**John:** No, it totally does. I guess where my mind was going was so often when I talk to people, maybe it’s the stage that they’re at, that they’re, you know, it’s been a number of months since they were laid off and they’re in more of that mode of like, I just gotta find something.

**Tammi:** Sure, understandable. Yes. And, and, and so that, that can be okay. That can be, you know, it’s when I, I got lucky with Nordstrom You know, I thought that was going to be like, I just need income right now, and it ended up being a really great fit for me. And so, you know, sometimes you just got to do what you got to do to take care of yourself financially, for sure. And you can still do that and still work on, you know, crafting your ideal career as well. So you can take the job, but, you know, spend some time on the other part of it. So that you find something that really feels like a good fit.

**John:** So how does swimming relate to all this? I know Tammi’s a swimmer, and I’ve always thought that was fascinating.

**Tammi:** I am. I do swim. I swim a couple days a week. And there’s— and it’s a practice. And I think that with anything, to get better at something, we have to practice and we have to learn that, like in swimming, it’s a very technical sport. So there’s a lot of technique to swimming. So there’s— and learning that technique and building on that is a lifelong endeavor. I mean, the elite athletes are amazing Olympian swimmers, you know, Katie Ledecky and so forth. They’re always learning. They’re always learning and always growing. So I think that swimming, as with any kind of sport, that it’s like once you start to learn the techniques and you stay, but you got to stay in the practice of it. And it’s, it’s very similar when, when you think about our careers, you know, and over time. And to me, the building relationships is a great practice. to get into and to not stop doing that even when you find your ideal job. Because you might just be in that position for 2 or 3 years and then you might be ready for the next level. And if the company you’re at doesn’t have that next level for you, then you want to be able to go, oh, I have— To really have all these relationships you’ve built upon. And then you— it’s so much easier to put yourself out there and say, hey, I’m looking for this next thing, what, what that next level for myself.

**John:** I don’t know anything about swimming. It looks like you just like put your arms and kick your feet, like move your arms and kick. But what’s the— That’s

**Tammi:** how I used to swim. I must have looked like a— I must— I, I used to— I never really took lessons. I think I took lessons when I was like, I don’t know, 5 or 6 years old. And, and At the local Y, but I was never on a swim team. I was a late bloomer and I started swimming about, actually about 10 years ago. And I started, I just went to the local community college. This was in Santa Monica and they have 2 amazing outdoor pools and I just started swimming laps. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I knew enough to kick and move my arms. Like I had the general— idea of freestyle swimming. And then I saw a few lanes over for— and I did this for about a year— and I saw a few lanes over in the morning, I would see this group and it looked like they had a coach who was standing up at the edge of the pool and coaching this group of people, you know, 5 or 8 people in a couple lanes. And they looked really good. They looked like they really knew what they were doing. And so I finally got up the nerve to ask the coach, like, what is this? And he said, oh, this is the The Masters Adult Masters Swim Club. And I said, well, what is that? And he said, well, you’re welcome to come check it out. Any level, like any level of swimmer. And I said, really? I said, I don’t know that I really know how to swim. That’s okay. Come on in. So that’s how I got involved in the Masters Club. And then I learned how to properly swim. Like the basic techniques, at least something to start to build upon.

**John:** So you just followed your curiosity?

**Tammi:** I did. I just— I, I— it took me a while. I had the curiosity, but then it took the courage to actually ask the coach what the heck was going on over there.

**John:** Now, you used to swim in the ocean too, right?

**Tammi:** I did. I— and I, I still do once in a while. I, I don’t do that up in Washington State. It’s too cold for my taste, but I am doing an ocean swim race at the end of this month in Santa Monica. It’s a quick swim. And yes, ocean swimming is fun. It’s not for everyone. I love being out there. I’m okay with not seeing what the bottom of the ocean looks like. So, yes, it’s not for everybody’s taste.

**John:** Well, anything else about the job search? selling shoes, swimming, or your newsletter or anything else?

**Tammi:** Well, I would say that for the job search, I mean, if anybody’s out there doing it on their own, you know, to consider— there’s a lot probably. I can’t speak on off the top of my head. I’m sure YouTube has plenty. But to really, if you’ve been just in that process of just sending out resumes and you don’t feel like you’re getting any traction, to One, to get some support, whether it’s the local— there are services that are local that I imagine you could have access to. There are many great career coaches out there. And also, you can do your own research, and there’s probably some online educational-type programs you can just take yourself through. But if you’re just sending resumes out, And, and again, not getting any traction, consider just looking at, you know, one, doing— consider a networking email to send out and, and then start looking around in your world and, and start asking for introductions to people. Not introductions to say, hey, do you have a job for me? Introductions to meet with people, to learn from them, to maybe they have another connection that they could connect you with to share what you’re up to, what you’re looking for, not to be needy and say, hey, do you have the job for me? But to just to connect and build relationships.

**John:** So, if people wanted to have a conversation with you, find out more about you, reach you, what’s the best way to do that?

**Tammi:** Yeah, they could find me on my— they can go to my website on Tammi, T-A-M-M-I, Scott, S-C-O-T-T, tammyscott.com. You can put your contact information and you can put a note Hey, I heard this podcast. I’d just like to learn more, and I’d be happy to have a brief conversation with you.

**John:** Excellent.

**Tammi:** Yeah. And if you also would like to just get a sample of the email, any of the emails that I’ve sent out, that I do send out on a regular basis, you can just ask for that and I’ll be happy to— I’ll forward you or put you on my list so you can receive the emails and then you can You can take what you want from it and build your own.

**John:** Thanks for listening to The John Poelstra Show. Notes, links, and all that other good stuff for this episode are at johnpoelstra.com/podcast. Send your questions, ideas, or a simple hello. Hello to REDACTED. Want to stay up to date on new episodes and receive notifications of upcoming events? Register your email address at johnpoelstra.com/updates.

The post 127: Improve Your Job Search with Email: Tammi Scott appeared first on John Poelstra.

Nick Accordino shares the emotional rollercoaster of being laid-off, searching for a new job, and landing a new fulfilling role.

Claude2 helped me with the title for this post. Here are the runner-ups which I thought were equally funny and creative.

## Related Episodes

– [Searching for a Job in Today’s Market with Greg Sterling (123)](https://johnpoelstra.com/job-search-greg-sterling-123/) — Greg Sterling on searching after a layoff

All songs licensed under Creative Commons

## Transcript

*This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.*

**John:** Today I’m talking to Nick Accordino. Nick and I met at Red Hat a long time ago. Nick was working somewhere in finance and was trying to help me get some stuff done. And Nick helped me to bust the story that dealing with people in finance was difficult. Fast forward a few years, we ended up coaching together for about 6 months. And toward the end of that time, Nick found out that his job was disappearing. So we thought it’d be fun to have a conversation about what it’s like to get laid off, what that process is like, how Nick went through that process, and how he came out on the other side. So welcome, Nick. How are you doing today?

**Nick:** Hey, John. Thanks for having me. I’m doing well. How are you?

**John:** I’m well. So what’s going on these days? Where, where do you find yourself?

**Nick:** Yeah, right now I find myself at a little company here in the Triangle, North Carolina called Bee Downtown. I’m working as a partnerships manager and working to basically connect companies that we work with to set up events and different types of like programming. And the whole business is we set up beehives at corporate campuses and then do lots of employee engagement. types of programming around that year-round. So that’s what I’m up to these days. Yeah.

**John:** What’s in it for a company to have a beehive at their campus?

**Nick:** I mean, besides for like the pure joy of having bees. Of getting stung? Yeah. Yeah. So there’s that. Yeah. So, I mean, these, these corporate campuses are typically pretty big, a lot of real estate, and they have these open spaces. And so there’s there’s, I guess, an environment ripe for bees, but also there’s employees who are looking for different ways to connect and do some team building and some bonding in different ways. And so it’s a way to not only utilize the physical space, but sort of use that as a jumping off point to bring people together, spark some connections, spark some joy. And really, it’s like this opportunity to sort of like learn a little bit of a lesson. from how bees work, teamwork principles, lots of biomimicry sort of lessons to be learned there and shared.

**John:** So how involved does this get? I mean, and, you know, I know there’s like cooking classes and stuff. Like, do you like put on all the little white suits and the smoker thing and like take the beehives apart?

**Nick:** We do that.

**John:** Yeah. Really?

**Nick:** We do tours. Yeah. So most of my teammates are beekeepers. And they lead those tours. And it’s really like very hands-on, very kinetic. And yeah, I mean, you’re in there learning kind of all different parts of a beehive, different types of bees. And then we have other sort of more hands-on programming that’s, I guess, less close to the bees, I guess I would say, but more like bee products. So beeswax, beeswax candles. different sort of honey-related honey tastings or honey camp as we call them. So there’s lots of, yeah, lots of different ways to go to, I guess, different directions to go in, but they’re all, it all starts with the bee and the power of sort of the hive mind or colony. Yeah.

**John:** It sounds like the whole product lifecycle.

**Nick:** Pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, they’re pretty integral to what us humans sort of rely on from a food Perspectives. Yeah.

**John:** Now this is totally different than what you were doing before. If I recall correctly, you were like doing ServiceNow or something for Red Hat IT or something.

**Nick:** Yeah, I’ve had a few different careers, I guess, before that, but this is completely different than what I was doing before. Yeah, that’s right.

**John:** So it’s April 2023. You get the email, the text, the whatever that says, I’m guessing, come to a meeting of some sorts and you find out you don’t have a job. What happens next?

**Nick:** It’s oddly quiet. I felt it was like an overwhelming sort of quietness, at least for me. I don’t know if it’s that intense sort of focus or attention that you put on that moment, but it all felt very quiet. I think for me, because we’ve been working together, it’s a lot of just recalling and sort of leaning into in that moment. Who am I? Like, what do I do? How am I supposed to act in this moment? Um, almost like finding your feet a little bit, but that’s, that’s how that first few hours or first day felt. Yeah.

**John:** And then did you immediately like have to clean out your cube or whatever, or how did all that go?

**Nick:** Uh, virtual cube, I guess. Yeah. We, we, we didn’t really have, um, At one point in time, Red Hat, I had a desk, like an assigned desk, but that was years before. So I didn’t, I don’t think I had anything at the office, just my at-home office. But yeah, so that felt a little bit funny. Like, yeah, I had my laptop and my, I guess, other work items, but those would soon be going back to Red Hat. So yeah.

**John:** Yeah. And what was the process that you went through, like from— and let’s strike that. So from the time you got laid off in April, how long before you found new work?

**Nick:** It was about 9 months.

**John:** And what was that process like?

**Nick:** It was at times a roller coaster. And at times a waiting game. There’s a lot of different things that happened in those 9 months. But yeah, I think for me, like, because I was— I knew I wanted to either— I guess I had multiple paths to go on, to sort of follow. I either wanted to continue on a path, do a bit of a tangent or something completely different. And I think in those 9 months, I tried a little bit of all the above. with varying degrees of success. But yeah, like over the course of those 9 months, I really tried a bunch of different things and really put myself out there and various forms of my resume and yeah, I guess my professional career at that point out there.

**John:** What was the most unusual thing you did?

**Nick:** The most unusual thing I did was probably I started volunteering at a local tourist office, tourism office. So I live in Durham and I’ve always taken an interest in just what’s happening around town, what’s new, what’s upcoming. And this organization, Discover Durham, is part of the tourism office for the city of Durham. I reached out to them and they had an opening on Tuesdays. And so for a good amount of time, I was there most Tuesday afternoons volunteering my time with people who are coming to visit our city here. That was probably the most out-there thing I did just because I don’t— I hadn’t worked in tourism before. And yeah, it But I really enjoyed that. It was like something that brought me a lot of joy. So, yeah, that was probably like the most out-there thing that I wouldn’t have otherwise done.

**John:** And how did you find that?

**Nick:** I think I found it through like a local volunteer, like sort of matching. I forget what the site is called, but like a local volunteer matching site where it’s organizations, majority like nonprofit, that are looking for volunteers. And then people who are volunteering looking for either specific causes or specific days of the week in which they can volunteer. And that’s how I found that opportunity. I found other opportunities on there too, mostly like creek cleanups and garbage cleanups for like green spaces and other maybe like sustainability-aligned organizations that are in and around the area that I also volunteered with. But that’s how I found this opportunity.

**John:** What was the lowest, hardest part of this 9 months?

**Nick:** I think for me, the lowest, hardest part was pursuing opportunities that I thought would excite me or would speak to what I wanted to do. I, and being so laser focused on them, and either getting far along in the process and talking myself into thinking I am a good fit for this, or this is maybe potentially like a landing spot for me. And going through that process several times, some of those opportunities now with like hindsight and some distance from them. Probably wouldn’t have been great fits for me. But, you know, the time and energy and all the things you sink into each of these opportunities is not insignificant. And I think just the mental game of pouring so much in there and in this process, there’s— I think I came back to this sort of phrase where it’s little to no reward. So Many times you don’t get a lot of feedback, or you don’t even get much of a human response after getting to know some of these folks as you interview with them. And some of the rejection messages or notes that you get can feel pretty cold. And so I think multiple points felt pretty low, just going through that process and committing so much of myself. Uh, and like my, just my, just, yeah, I guess my energy towards these different opportunities and not feeling like there’s a lot of reward on the other side. So that, that, that felt probably, if I think about low or lowest points, that there’s a few of them in there. Yeah.

**John:** And were you mostly applying— what was the context of companies that you were applying to?

**Nick:** I, I think of my, I think my my career at that point was like a fairly generalist sort of finance or operations professional. And so there’s a lot of companies that have roles like that. So bigger companies, some here in the Triangle, but some that were advertising remote jobs. So, yeah, I mean, I guess it was mostly companies looking for generalists, but that’s sometimes hard to tailor your skill set or your experience to those types of roles. And also knowing that you’re probably one of quite a large number of applicants. So that’s, I guess, to give like a general answer of like most of the jobs I was applying to, that’s about the direction I was looking.

**John:** Were they local or remote?

**Nick:** Some were local, but a lot of them were not initially. There was a point in my search where I shifted back towards local, and that’s where I had some success in terms of like landing interviews, or at least, you know, talking to humans about like opportunities that might be coming up, or just really some of the networking conversations. Those seem to be much easier to get started with local companies. And then towards the end of my search, I got very like hyperlocal, just only within a 15, 20, maybe 25-minute radius of my home and like where I’m at here in North Carolina. So yeah, different phases of my job search, not always local, but became very local towards the end.

**John:** So would you— because I have heard from other people that when they started focusing on local things, they started to get more traction versus the black hole of LinkedIn or, you know, applying for jobs at other places online.

**Nick:** Yeah, some of the job boards can feel hard because it, um, there’s so— it feels like there’s so many job opportunities and you don’t know which ones are real and which feels weird to say, but like, there— it just feels like a lot of them are copy paste. Um, Um, like job descriptions. So it’s hard to tell. And also, like, some of the third-party things, like, if, if I’m not seeing it on a company’s website that they’re looking for someone with this role, um, you sort of become a little bit skeptical as to, like, is this an opportunity or is this just, like, um, an old job posting or one that doesn’t hold water? So it became a little hard, some of those job boards, to to really understand what’s a real opportunity that’s worth like putting my time and effort into it versus, you know, another thing to sort of watch the number of applicants rise again and again every like hour or so.

**John:** And what led you in the direction of really getting specific locally?

**Nick:** Some of it was just some of the, I think, the natural feedback I was getting either by way of, of not landing many opportunities with my original search. And some of it was just tapping in with my local network and saying, what’s something that I’m passionate about that I feel like I could have an impact on, like, in my community? And in order to do that, it’s sort of shifting my focus back towards Well, who’s doing that around me? And I think, yeah, so I maybe came at it from a couple different ways, but both, both of those paths sort of pointed towards who are the companies nearby who are, you know, I think lining up with my values or like what I would like to do with my career. And, and how are they doing that work? Or like, what opportunities career-wise are they offering for folks to sort of join that mission and join a team. So, um, yeah, I guess those are the 2 ways in which I sort of came to that realization that the path I probably need to be on is a more localized path.

**John:** So it sounds like the longer the job search went on, the more specific and pickier you got.

**Nick:** Yes.

**John:** Which sounds kind of ironic.

**Nick:** That’s accurate. Yeah.

**John:** The story I would make up is if I was not— if I was at the 8 or 9 month mark, I would be thinking, oh my gosh, I’ll just take anything that’s out there. But I hear you doing the opposite.

**Nick:** Uh, there was a little bit of that, uh, feeling, but I, I, um, it’s hard when, when, um, how do I say this? It’s hard when even like, just like it became like even just like getting in the interview door became hard. So, um, I guess there’s— in some ways I was pickier, but also in other ways I was becoming more and more just open to just really any opportunity that might be out there. But yeah, I guess in some ways I did become more picky though.

**John:** And it paid off.

**Nick:** It did very much pay off. Yeah.

**John:** Now tell me about working at the grocery store. I remember talking to you at one point, and I don’t remember if it was email or just a quick conversation, but I remember you saying, John, I’m working, like, I’m driving a forklift and I’m working at this grocery store. What, how did that fit into this whole process?

**Nick:** Yeah. Um, it became, it became where I, I can sort of just be a busybody. And so with nothing to do at home for so long, And you really just can’t be applying for jobs like for that many hours. Like, I just needed to be out of the house. And so I—

**John:** In a given day, like, what was the average amount of time that you could meaningfully like apply and correspond with people before you were just like, it was worthless?

**Nick:** I mean, it’s almost like a full workday. I feel like that’s where I sort of topped out. Like, you know, whether that’s how I viewed it as like sort of a job, or I mean, sometimes it’s like each cover letter or each sort of email becomes like sort of a mini assignment. And it’s like, alright, well, I know these people are probably working just normal hours. If I can get this to them by end of day and I found the opportunity at lunchtime, I’ve got like 3 or 4 hours to sort of spin up a new resume, a new cover letter, and try and find a couple contacts that I think I either have mutual connections with, or maybe an interesting path in by way of a LinkedIn message. So became sort of like mini assignments. But I think there’s 2 ways to look at it, John. So it’s like almost like a full workday, but also kind of like how many of those repetitive workdays can you do? And so like after maybe like 2 or 3, maybe 3 and a half of those workdays in a row, you’re like, I I’m not sure that I can, how much more I can give to this in this week. And so, so there’s also like a, um, yeah, in terms of just like a number of days also, like again and again, going back to that same routine, it can be pretty, um, pretty, pretty exhausting.

**John:** Well, I’ve heard some people say they do like a couple hours a day, like 2 or 3 max, and then that’s it. Which I think is a surprise to some people because some people feel like, well, Gosh, I was working 8, 9, 10 hours a day. So now I have to look for a job 8, 9, 10 hours a day. And I was out of work, like, I think in between college semesters or something a very long time ago. And it was, it was depressing. It was hard. So—

**Nick:** It’s really hard. Yeah.

**John:** Yeah. So,

**Nick:** I mean, there were some days I was tapped out after a couple hours where I just, you just don’t have sort of like the emotional capacity to do any more than that. Yeah.

**John:** Okay, so you realize you need to get out and do something. You apply to a grocery store. How does that all go?

**Nick:** Yeah, I had worked at this grocery store in high school and in college, and I knew it was something that I enjoyed then, even though I’m at a very different stage in my life now. But yeah, it was about to be the holidays and We weren’t having— we didn’t have any plans to really go anywhere this past holiday season. So I applied and basically had my old job back from high school and college working at a grocery store, unloading trucks, stocking produce. And it was, I would say, equal parts fun, but also equal parts confusing sometimes. What, what am I doing here? But also just like on the surface, a pretty fun job and pretty light in terms of like, I’m not taking work home with me. I’m just showing up, doing my thing. People are gonna buy the produce and next day I’ll have to restock the shelf again. And so it’s sort of, there’s a, there’s something sort of almost meditative about like the, the, the repetition to it. Um, or the, I guess the cyclical nature of, of grocery shoppers and how you sort of, uh, restock the shelves. So yeah.

**John:** Well, what’s— I’m laughing over here because I’m thinking, gosh, there’s probably like no Google Docs to annotate. Like, did they even give you an email account?

**Nick:** No, no. Yeah. I had no email to check. Yeah. Um, yeah, it was. Um, and so, yeah, I guess for that it was like a little bit refreshing. There’s no, There’s literally nothing to take home with you at the end of the workday.

**John:** Are there regulars in the produce department? Like, do you start to see a pattern of like the same people?

**Nick:** Oh yeah.

**John:** Yeah.

**Nick:** And because I, because I like to, you know, I like to cook and I also like to talk to people, I would ask folks what they’re making with a particular—

**John:** I love it.

**Nick:** Pepper or like a, like a mushroom, you know, a different variety of mushroom. Like what? What are you making with that? You know, and so, yeah, I definitely got to know a couple people in terms of like regular shoppers who would come in and were very willing. People want to share like their recipes and what they’re making and, and they want to share in that experience. And I want to, I want to be part of that too. So that’s why working in produce is fun.

**John:** So how did the— it’s called Bee Downtown, is that what your current company is? So how did that come about?

**Nick:** That came about after, um, so I’m working at the grocery store, taking like an actual break from my job search process for, I want to say, almost a month. So right before Thanksgiving, I stopped searching for jobs. Had actually locked— yeah, I actually had locked, logged, logged out and deleted the LinkedIn app and a couple of apps from my phone and took a, took a really hard stop break.

**John:** Wait, say more about this. So you consciously stopped looking for a job?

**Nick:** Yes, I did. It became just the, the sort of grueling, unrelentless sort of nature of it became just— yeah, I just, I didn’t want to do it even though I had to do it. And so I used the opportunity to just take a break. You know, I mean, working at a grocery store is vastly different than what I was doing before, but like making a little bit of money and Being part of a team again and just feeling like almost like you’re you’re almost like plugging like plugging in your phone when it’s like on low battery mode and you’re watching it kind of go down like it I just needed to sort of recharge and be present with my family during the holidays and it felt really good to just unplug from that like in mid mid November and then I had planned to take about a month break and so right before Christmas, I very casually started to look for jobs. And so that, like, that about month period from mid-November to mid-December is, is, was a very, like, it was a planned break where I needed to just unplug and, and then reshape my mindset a little bit about how I was going to plug back in and sort of refocus on, on the job search.

**John:** So what was the new approach you took when you started up again?

**Nick:** I noticed that there were some business leaders within, within, within like Durham and the surrounding Triangle area that had small startups. A lot of them were sustainability, either aligned or focused in some way. And that’s always been a passion of mine, but never had, I guess, roles or worked maybe at like companies where that was the main focus. And so, I, you know, how do I take something that’s a passion of mine or like is a project I’m doing off on the side in my personal life? How do I maybe tailor my skill set or my experience like with that focus in mind? And so I started to just follow along on LinkedIn, some of these posts from local startups, what they were doing. One of those posts had, I think it was like 15 or 20 companies that are worth checking out in the area, doing cool things. Just kind of like a blast of like, here’s who they are, here’s what they’re up to. And they may or may not be hiring, but they’re worth just at least, you know, doing like a sort of a digital knock on the door on each one. And so that’s what I started to do. I just would every couple days kind of like go through and do some deep reading and research on each of these companies. And I think it was like, I don’t know, I still want to say like maybe 2 days before Christmas, I was here doing that on Be Downtown and they had just posted a job an hour before that. And I was like, oh, that’s like, feels very serendipitous. And so followed that curiosity and it’s the role I have now, the partnerships manager position. And, you know, I’ve always considered myself to be in partner roles, whether I’m the partner or the one organizing partners and very sort of people-centric roles. And so I got to work on kind of tailoring my professional sort of experience into this very hyper, like, local company that has a strong sort of sustainability mission and focus and and taking my experience and what I have is just like a passion for these kind of things and pouring it into a very direct set of resume and cover letter and other materials.

**John:** What do you think the chances of finding this would have been if you had just continued to grind it out and not taken that month off?

**Nick:** I think I would have missed it. I mean, the chances of me, I guess, finding it or happening upon it are just so Slim. I mean, the, the, the traffic, the noise that’s just coming at you when you are signed up for all the job alerts, for all the different things. It’s really distracting. Like, your, your, your mind really can’t compute all that. And that’s why there’s, you know, lists and shortlists of things that are tailored for your interests. But Yeah, you’re never going to see every opportunity. So I think me taking that pause and literally shutting off the valve of all that information coming, just like sort of blasting my direction, allowed me the space to again be picky, be very choosy about how I was engaging or who I was engaging. And I don’t think I would have found it with my first approach of, of search anywhere and everywhere for jobs. So yeah, I definitely would have missed it.

**John:** What I hear there too is the slowing down, slowing down and then trying something different. What you had done up until November wasn’t yielding anything. So instead of doubling down on what wasn’t working, you took a break.

**Nick:** Yeah, I mean, I both needed the break and it gave me like the chance to really reset and have an entirely different approach, mostly because the approach was not working.

**John:** Yeah. Based on all of this, what advice would you have for someone in your stage of your career, maybe even in your area, maybe to other people from Red Hat? Like, what, what advice would you have in terms of What to do, what you learned, anything?

**Nick:** Yeah, I think for me it was more, I guess it was more rewarding. And I had a, I just felt more confident in the conversations I was having when I was showing up and sort of being true to myself, my values, the things that were important to me. It’s really, it’s now very easy to see a job, take a resume, hit apply, And you’re sort of adding to the noise a little bit. But when you’re showing up as maybe your authentic self, and you’re putting words on the page that mean a lot to you, and that you know mean a lot to the other person that you’re applying to for a job, or that goes for whether you’re applying for a job or making a connection or connecting with an old friend, like, if you mail it in, that other person will probably— see that. And I’m not sure how willing they’ll be to, you know, to follow up or reply back to you. But I think if you’re putting your authentic self on the page, or, or even just breaking through in a different way that allows yourself to show up, that, that’s where I had the most success. And so, you know, could I have done that More. Yeah, it’s kind of an interesting question. If I look back, like, well, you know, why wasn’t I doing that for all of them? It’s because I think it takes a lot of energy to do that. You’re kind of vulnerable. You’re putting yourself out there. And it takes a lot of energy to do that. But I also think the machines that are sort of set up within this job market right now are set up for speed and not necessarily for like deep connection. And so I guess that would be my advice is like try and find ways in which you can display who you are, what’s unique about you, what your skill set is, and see if you can make that human connection that would spark another human conversation. Rather than adding to the general noise of applications and resumes and all that.

**John:** Well, I also hear that you were doing that even in the form of the volunteering work that you were doing.

**Nick:** Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, and the beauty of that, like, volunteer opportunity was you literally had no idea who was going to walk in the door. That’s the whole point of a tourism office that, you know, people are there looking for Any and all information. And you don’t know when they’re coming. You don’t know where they’re coming from, but they’re, they’re there in that moment. And so you have to be quick on your feet and figure out in a couple questions at most, like how you can make a connection and find out what’s important to them. What would make their day a little bit brighter, or even just send them in a literal direction that would make their experience unique or memorable. So, yeah, I don’t know. I guess, I guess I would also advise, like, if you’re feeling like a little bit stuck, just being in scenarios where you’re within community or with, with other people, and even trying on some new hats that you would not normally try on, just sparks some creativity, sparks some different direction for yourself.

**John:** And underscoring getting out of the house.

**Nick:** Yeah, I mean, I enjoy being outside, but it’s different to be outside and with other people than just outside.

**John:** So. So any other parting words, words of advice, encouragement for anyone out there that’s going through the same thing that you’ve gone through here?

**Nick:** Yeah, I would say that there’s many of us that have gone through this, and it’s not fun. It’s not always rewarding, but that it’s, it’s really best if you can figure out how to stay true to yourself and get that on the, on the paper and make some human connections. And I’m a human who’s very willing and open to connect. And so if you want to reach out to me for more information about my journey, or if you just want someone to listen to you about your journey, I’m all ears for that. So yeah, just to say, like, I guess overall, I guess the over— as a lasting or parting thought is that you are not the only one going through this. And it’s not fun, but there are opportunities out there. And yeah, and people who are willing to help.

**John:** And when you say LinkedIn is the best place to find you?

**Nick:** Yep, I’m on LinkedIn. It’s back on my phone. So I’m logged back in and I don’t post a ton, but I am on there and I am engaging with former colleagues, friends. And yeah, I would love to hear from other people who are in a similar boat or similar journey.

**John:** Alright. Well, I hope people will take you up on that.

**Nick:** Yeah, me too. Yeah, yeah.

**John:** Thanks for listening to The John Poelstra Show. Notes, links, and all that other good stuff for this episode are at johnpoelstra.com/podcast. Send your questions, ideas, or a simple hello to REDACTED. Want to stay up to date on new episodes and receive notifications of upcoming events? Register your email address at johnpoelstra.com/updates.

The post 126: Out of the Job Hive, Into the Beehive: Nick Accordino’s Layoff to Apiary Tale appeared first on John Poelstra.

Stephen Warley joins me to explore why your job search and networking strategies aren’t working and what to do instead.

Stephen Warley has been a serial solopreneur for the past 25 years. He’s the founder of LifeSkillsThatMatter.com. He’s a career and business coach on a mission to help you create work that works for you in alignment with your values, needs and abilities. He believes work is fundamentally changing as you know it and we’re all going to have to manage ourselves whether you work for yourself or someone else. Learn how to start making your work, work for you at www.lifeskillsthatmatter.com/about

## Related Episodes

– [Are You Ready for the Changing Nature of Work? with Stephen Warley (39)](https://johnpoelstra.com/changing-work-stephen-warley-039/) — my first conversation with Stephen

All songs licensed under Creative Commons

## Transcript

*This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.*

**John:** Today I’m talking to Stephen Warley. Steven and I met on the internet a lot of years ago. It came about as a result of going to the very first Podcast Movement conference and talking to someone at happy hour, and they were asking me what I wanted to do, and I said, I want to help people get unstuck. This is way before I got into coaching or anything, and this lady said, oh yeah, there’s this podcast called Unstuckable. You should listen to it. I was like, really? So I started listening to it, and these 2 guys. It was Steven and I think this other guy named Chris.

And they said, hey, we want to know how you’re stuck. We want to hear from you. So write to us. I was like, yeah, whatever. I’ll write to them, but I’ll never hear from them. And Steven wrote back. I think Chris did too. And I don’t know, we became, I don’t know what, friends? And then we’ve met a few times in real life and Steven’s on the East Coast. I’m on the West Coast. So welcome back, Steven.

**Stephen:** Thank you. And that was 10 years ago.

**John:** Oh, was it? Okay.

**Stephen:** Isn’t that crazy? Yes, 10 years. So much has happened in 10 years.

**John:** Yes.

**Stephen:** Times were simpler back then.

**John:** Or at least that’s what we tell ourselves. I’m listening to Morgan Housel’s new book, uh, Same as It Ever Was or something like that, and the whole book is— the whole book is focused on what has not changed. It’s very kind of interesting. We’re

**Stephen:** still

**John:** breathing. Yeah. So Stephen was all about helping people get unstuck then based on his experiences with having a job and then not having one, I think. And we were talking a week or two ago and Stephen got fired up about finding a job in today’s current environment, which is something I see constantly on LinkedIn. I work with clients on it as well. And I just thought, let’s have a conversation. Let’s get really practical. Like, for someone that’s been laid off, lost their job, looking for new work, what’s working today? What, what doesn’t? And where should people even start? Because I see all I hear is I’m applying to jobs on LinkedIn and nothing’s happening.

**Stephen:** You know me, me being me, a little bit unconventional, but pretty, again, timeless. The very first step is you’re doing this thing and it’s not working. Can I ask your listeners a question, John?

**John:** You can, you can do whatever you want here, Steven. It’ll be good.

**Stephen:** Why are you continuing to do something that doesn’t work for you? See, that’s, that’s always like the basic, like, so you’re doing this thing and it’s not working.

**John:** Well, there’s nothing else. I mean, that’s all that I see. All these—

**Stephen:** That’s just not true.

**John:** I see all these jobs, I, and I apply and it’s a perfect fit. I mean, I’m a perfect fit for this. And, and it says on LinkedIn that 5 people have applied. So why is nobody getting back to me?

**Stephen:** So let’s take a little context. Like 10 years ago, this stuff kind of did work. It was still newish. You know, LinkedIn was only like 5 years old-ish around that time, right? So it’s just like anything, these things work or they have these promises that are delivered upon, but then somewhere along the way with technology just goes off the rails and becomes very unhelpful for what it originally promised. And I think That’s what happened to— has happened to online job postings.

Um, you know, you know, using LinkedIn, it’s so overdone. It’s, it’s so flooded that you have to go do something else. And again, me being me, that’s kind of my story of my life. I always like, okay, no one’s over here, so I’ll go over there. And John, you know what nobody does anymore? What? What I did to get my very first job in television, I just talked to people. I just talked to people. I don’t do the digital thing.

So I, my very first job in television, I, there was called Bacon’s Media Guide and I wanted to get a job in television and it had all these phone numbers. It was a PR firm. I would never otherwise have access to this. Like you have to think about 1997, having access to something like this was like, Oh, crazy. You know what I mean? These books were— I forgot how much they cost.

So I copied down like 5 phone numbers every day. I was working in Times Square and I go to the Marriott Marquis with my roll of quarters at a phone booth. Like, I’m really dating myself, people. And I would call these shows and be like, hey, do you have any entry-level jobs? Blah, blah, blah. And eventually I got a few. They’re like, yes, send me your resume. And then one led to an interview. And then I ended up eventually getting a job at CBS News just because I just called a lot of different television news shows in New York City and eventually something got through.

**John:** Oh, I love that. I love that. I remember walking to different buildings as well with the quarters in my pocket to call a recruiter because I was trying to jump jobs and there was no way you could make phone calls in the office. That is so hilarious.

**Stephen:** As for today, so, you know, years later, what, 27 years later, I still did the same thing, John. So I moved to this town in Western Massachusetts. It’s 13,000 people. It’s in an economically distressed area, which I think a lot of people are familiar with in the United States. Large swaths of our country are going through this. It was an old mill town. All the jobs left like 30 years ago, 40 years ago. So I came into town and I decided I needed a pause from my digital life. I’ve been working for myself for 24 years, mostly online, and it took a couple of months off. And then I’m like, what do I want to do? Alright, I want to help out this place. So I just made a list of people related to economic development. About 60 people, I think.

**John:** Where did you get the list?

**Stephen:** I just, I first broke it down into niches, like who would be interested in an economic development, like politicians, the commercial banks, real estate folks, community leaders. So I started, you know, niching them and then kind of doing some Google searches. I would also ask people that I met, who do, who should I know? Because it’s like small town life, might as well like use that to my advantage. So I just simply, I did a very simple email. I emailed all these folks cold again, just like I did in 1999. ’97, but I called back then. I didn’t email.

And I said, hey, I’m new to town. I’m really interested in economic development, getting involved. I’d just love to hear your take on the challenges and opportunities around here because you’ve been doing this a long time. And John, most people are like, sure, I’ll talk to you. So I talked to a ton of people. And then what happened, John, a place that everybody told me like there’s no jobs here, there’s no money, people started throwing work at me. A lot of consulting projects. And I was like, okay, I have plenty of work to handle here. What do you mean there’s no money here?

**John:** So what would you say though to someone in, say, a software, you know, they’ve been— a company I used to work for, not too far from you there in Massachusetts, they had a big layoff. So project managers, marketing people that, you know, some of them have been with the company 10, 15 years, suddenly no job. Like, who do they talk to? Where do they find the people to talk to for their next job?

**Stephen:** First thing, it’s another mindset thing. You have to get over your fear of actually talking to an actual human being. So that has been what has happened, the screenification of our lives, which I fear for, for younger generations, the pandemic, and everybody has social anxiety now. It seems like that’s— by the way, everybody’s a little afraid of talking to other humans. Okay. Newsflash. You know what I mean? It’s all part of us. So you’re not alone.

Uh, so I think that’s that first step. Again, just because it’s easy and you’re doing it a lot, and that’s the thing in your brain when you are applying to lots of jobs on Indeed or LinkedIn or whatever niche website, you have a lot of job listings for your industry. It feels like you’re doing work, right? It does. It’s exhausting being on these screens and filling out all these really complicated forms. They’ve even gotten more complicated. And then it’s really disheartening to find out that most of them are just going to an algorithm now, not even a human being. to decide if you even make it to a human being.

So that is what— so the first step I would ask people, like, what you’re doing, is it working? If it’s not, stop it. Because you’re just wasting all of effort. You’re not going to get any response. I mean, I mean, I’ve heard people who are like, I’ve submitted like 100, 200, 500 resumes and nothing’s happening. I, there’s a woman I’ve known for a long time. Um, very talented. And happens to be a graphic designer. Now you have to realize there’s also certain professions that are really starting to change faster than others in terms of the influence of automation and AI.

I think graphic designers are one of them. It’s only going to get harder to find a job just by applying for the one for a graphic designer. And she was doing that, you know, here’s everything I’m doing. I think you got to go talk to people like find companies or a niche that you’re interested in. She settled into a niche that she liked and she started making her list. of like, who is, you know, who is the person who’s going to hire a graphic designer? You know, it’s usually somebody in the marketing department at a university. So making up a list, reaching out, asking her network, do you know anybody who’s marketing related to marketing at a university or anybody who even works at a university just to get me in so I could talk to somebody?

So this is like the good old-fashioned networking that we have to do. And so step 1 is get over Trying to just avoid humans and stay in the safety of applying for jobs online. It’s not working. You know it. I know it. We’re talking about it. This is why John had me here. So step two is you’re gonna have to talk to people again. So where where are these people and who do you want to talk to?

And the first thing, John, I always tell people: We often overlook the people that we already know. And if you’re listening to us right now, you know I want you to scan your phone. I want you to scan your email. I want to scan your social media channels, and I want. I want you to find— think of as you’re looking, your eyeballs are scanning through these names. If you have a really strong feeling like, oh yeah, that person, I can’t believe I forgot about them. They know somebody that could introduce me to somebody, or they’re in the industry. Just make that list and have that strong feeling.

And you’re probably gonna come up with like more names than you, you, you realize. Uh, and you’re gonna start reaching out to each one of those people. And the next step, which is really hard for us, John, is just be honest where you’re at. Be like, this is just what happened. This is what I want to do. I was wondering if you could think of somebody that I might be able to talk to, or even more direct, do you have any openings, um, in your business? Like, be honest, you know what I mean? That saves you so time. In fact, John, my email that’s going out tomorrow is about the greatest time saver I have ever discovered, and it’s being honest with yourself.

**John:** Amazing.

**Stephen:** Because it’s painful, right? We don’t like Like nobody wants to hear saying like, Stephen, you’re telling me I’ve been wasting my time applying to all these jobs for the last 6 months? That hurts. Yeah, it hurts. Your brain doesn’t want to waste time. It doesn’t want to know that it’s doing that to itself, but how it’s not helping. So like, let’s, let’s have a little temporary pain here and be like, this isn’t working. You’ve wasted time. It’s time to move on to the next thing now, because do you want to waste another 6 months doing the exact same thing that’s not working?

**John:** Yeah, you got the perfect system for the results you’re getting.

**Stephen:** Right? No results.

**John:** So what are you going to change? What variable? So you’re.

**Stephen:** And here’s the thing again, like this: Do you really want an algorithm deciding your the fate of your career? Like think about that, right? I mean, the machines are kind of taking over in a way. And even if they’re, and I’m but Stephen, I’m in an industry that this is how they do it, and it’s really big corporations that I’m you know applying to.

**John:** Like how about finance? Like I know someone in finance, vice president. Bank merger,

**Stephen:** right? Blah blah blah. I’ve heard all about the excuses you’ve got. You can find the challenges. Like, I have to go find people to talk to, and it might be even messy. It might even not even be quote unquote the right person, the best person, or the perfect person, because this is a journey. You know, John, people when they get a job, they secretly are they’re really excited about it, right? But they’re also privately really relieved because they don’t have to look for a job right now, right? They got it. They don’t have to figure that out.

You’re listening to a person who is constantly looking for work because I’ve been working for myself for 24 years. And I’m so glad that I have that ability because I’m always in this position. I’m always looking for new clients, new work. It never ended. I have this skill that I’m always sharpening. And work is changing so quickly right now. All of us are going to have to find a job or manage our careers like this.

Even if you want to be an employee and you like that structure, and we need you. But you’re still gonna have to think like an entrepreneur in terms of constantly building your network. Even when you get that job and you feel like, woo, it’s safe. Alright, settle in for a few months, but then after that, you should be out there finding people to meet again. So that way, when you do get laid off or the rug is pulled out from under you, or you, you’re the boss that you love decides to leave, and then you have a nightmare boss that replaces them and you, you’re hating life, you have a network to fall back on. And that’s why, John, so many people. are in this position that they only can apply to jobs because they let their network, their connections totally atrophy.

You know, they, and then, and then when you’re really desperate and you need a job, then you feel weird about calling these people because they haven’t heard from you in 2 years. Now you’re just calling them because you need a job.

**John:** So that’s another thing that you got to kind of get over to make peace with, forgive yourself, is to say, okay, my network’s a little stale. Mm-hmm. And how can I get over myself? And also so many times too, it’s just a story. It’s a problem that it’s been so many years since I talked to this person, therefore I can’t reach out to them because it would be weird.

**Stephen:** Well, let’s use ourselves as an example. We’ve known each other for 10 years. Have we had large gaps in our communication? Sure. But then,

**John:** yeah,

**Stephen:** you or me like pop in one time and it’s just like, okay, just like where we—

**John:** Yeah, what’s up? What are you doing? Yeah. And we don’t make it weird. We’re not like, well, it’s been, let’s see, it’s been a year since I talked to Steven. And this could be a little awkward, you know, should I reach out or not? And it’s just like, I don’t— I’ve done this so much myself now with my own coaching business that I just skip making up the story. Oh, someone came to mind. I wonder how they’re doing. So I’ll ask, how are you doing? That’s it.

**Stephen:** And I think you’re giving a nice example. Again, it’s all about the mindset. You know, I know all this technology stuff, everybody thinks it’s like, it’s the magic pill that’s going to save our life, right? I love the original technology of our brain. And the first thing you have to do is like about that fear of reaching out to people, or you’re like, okay, Stephen, you know, I made that list you’re talking about, but now what do I say?

And I’m like, just be a person. Just be curious. And it’s gonna be a little different for everybody. Like, hey, I see Jane over there. Oh, you know what I wanna ask her? I, last time I talked to her, she was like, uh, had a 2-year-old. I wonder like what ha— what’s happening with her kid. Whatever, you know what I mean? It just like, just be curious. Don’t like— that’s the huge, uh, thing. Just be honest about where you’re at, but also be curious. And you want to know like where they’re at, you know, make it a conversation. So I think a lot of times we don’t like this sort of reach out, John, because we feel like we’re at a, in a lesser place, a lower place, because I’m like, ooh, I don’t have it all figured out right now. And I’m asking for something.

I’m groveling. It doesn’t have to be like that. You can approach these conversations as equals. You’re a human, they’re a human. And I’m sure there’d be a lot of these folks would be just psyched to hear from you again.

**John:** Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

**Stephen:** So you had a nice phone call. Maybe nothing came of it. That’s okay.

**John:** Yes, yes, yes. And then it has to be almost, almost like, um, I’m stealing this from Steve Chandler, I think. So he calls it like, it’s like selling movie tickets. Next. I reached out to that person and I didn’t hear from them. Next, next, next. The person selling movie tickets, if someone comes up— if I go up to the counter and be like, oh, what’s showing? Yeah, I’m not really interested. I don’t think so. The ticket— the ticket seller’s not like, oh, I’m so depressed now because John didn’t buy a ticket. He’s like, who wants to buy one next? Who— what’s— how— what else is out there? Let’s go.

**Stephen:** Yes and no. Okay, I think there’s a certain group of people on your list That, like, that’s kind of weird that they didn’t respond in the last week. I’m a huge advocate of the follow-up because nobody does that. So I like to give people— because weird things happen with email.

**John:** Totally.

**Stephen:** You know, ends up in spam or they’re just so busy. And, and I— and actually, my, my follow-up, the next email, I actually always put the second one. I always use the exact same showings line, following up. Yeah, because immediately people know that trigger, like Um, he’s following up. I don’t remember getting an email from him or whatever, you know. And then there are a lot of times people apologize to me, which I’m kind of laughing. They feel bad. Um, or sometimes you just never hear from them. Now, if it’s somebody you really want to get a hold of and that second email didn’t work, guess what? Good old magic phone call. If you have their phone number and you can leave a voicemail and they can—

**John:** Or a text.

**Stephen:** Or you can hear the tone in your voice, or even with a Even with text messaging, sometimes I like doing the audio feature because I want them to hear the tone of my voice. So it sounds like, oh yeah, you know, he’s in a good mood and it’s positive. Sometimes text, it can get slightly misinterpreted, even if you’ve like sweated it out and really thought about how you’re going to write those words. You never know where the person on the other end, how they’re going to take that same word. Like, do you remember there was this— I think it was a State Farm commercial where they had the exact same scripts of words, but they just changed the tone of them. Like somebody was really in a bad place and somebody was really in a good place. I love that commercial because that’s what happens to us every day. I don’t know, like, it’s a whole other sidebar of a conversation we could have about watch yourself when you feel like you’re going to use the written word to have a conversation.

**John:** Okay. What does that mean?

**Stephen:** You’re losing the tone of the voice. You’re losing the context. It’s words and they’re going to take it differently. So that way when I’m on a call and I could already hear in their voice that they’re starting to take it away that I didn’t, I can redirect super fast and it’s immediate. We’re right in real time. But when it’s a text message, um, yeah, I don’t know what they’re doing over there, and— or I’m not sure what mood that they’re in. And so I can’t— I’m, you know, there’s no amount of emojis that’s ever going to fix it.

**John:** But again, I feel like we’re back to— and this is something I’ve had to practice myself— not making up stories. What is— and I like to ask here, what is true? What is true is I sent an email on March 1st. What else is true? It’s March 10th and I haven’t heard back from them. What else is true? That’s it. Okay, so I’ll send the follow-up email. Hey, I often— I just reply or reforward and say, did you see this? And yeah, I get the same thing. Oh, I saw this and I was going to respond. I’m so sorry. Oh, I’d love to talk. Or nothing happens. And it’s like, okay, now what’s true? They didn’t write back. What else is true? That’s all I know. So what do I want to do next?

**Stephen:** And I think another mindset thing that I want to add to here, that the way that you’re bringing it out for me, it’s just give everybody the benefit of the doubt.

**John:** Yes, but don’t take it personally.

**Stephen:** Don’t take it personally. Don’t make this about yourself.

**John:** If you’re gonna— go ahead. I’m gonna say, if you’re gonna make up a story, make up a good one. Oh, they really wanted to get back to me, but they lost you know, both of their hands and they can’t type, or like, I don’t know what, just, but make up a good story. Don’t make up one that’s like, well, they hate me and I probably offended them at that party 2, 3 years ago and they’re never gonna write to me. And yeah, why do that?

**Stephen:** And, and I, I, you know, John, you’ve listened to him and you’re, I hope you’re getting a little know about me. Like, John and I know, like, you’re in a vulnerable place. You’re in a place not everybody likes to feel like. We get it. But you could dwell and get sucked into that vulnerable place and kind of take it, go into a negative direction with it, or be like, you know what?

The universe or whatever you believe in has decided that I’m opening up a new chapter in my life, and I want to put my best face forward here and take the next step and like look at it as an adventure. Try to enjoy it. You know, we’ve all—I mean, you’ve been around the block. Like I’m pushing fifty here. I’ve seen enough ups and downs in my life to know, like in the grand scheme of things, things generally keep moving in a pretty okay place. Sure, I’ve had some like rough times in my life, but I also. Those times, they were not pleasant going through them as you’re going through them, but you end up learning things about yourself, about humans, and just about how you want to proceed in life. You almost like to get better at life. You have to go through rough patches. There’s just no way around it.

**John:** But I think you said a super key thing. Movement, continuing to move. More thinking. That’s the death spiral. I just need to sit here and think harder about who I should reach out to. I just need to think harder. I need to, when I’m, when I’m a little clearer, you know, tomorrow would be a much better time than right now, and then I’ll be in a better space, then I’ll write the email, then I’ll look at— like, it’s, it’s, it’s either it’s the putting it off or it’s the like, I just need to think about it more because I don’t think this is quite good enough to send. Whereas if you just— it’s, I don’t know, it’s building a muscle, it’s building movement, momentum, motion. I don’t know what the right words are, but what do you think?

**Stephen:** No, yeah, doing, getting— it’s getting out of your head. There’s no way to get in your head is what you just said, doing, taking action. You have to be in the external world here, right? Another quick mindset trick Is to break it down to a lot of times people will say, oh, people say I got to reach out to 5 people every day. And I’m like, I got to go find them. I got to get their emails. Then I got to find out what I’m going to write to them. Then I got to send it, right? You get so in your head, like you’re taking hours on end.

Another approach here is realize like that involves a lot of tasks. Like step 1 is like, who do I want to talk to? Like brainstorm different types of people. Step 2, how am I going to find their contact information? Like these could be 2 separate days. Step 3, it could be like, what’s like 75% of the email that I’m going to send to every single one of them? So let me write that.

And then step 4, I’m going to start sending out these emails. And then step 5, I’m going to track this. I love spreadsheets. They’re free, ubiquitous. Even after all these years, they are solid, man. And I put it— it’s very satisfying to like, ooh, look at all these different people that I am I’ve, I want to talk to, or I found emails for. I’m filling the blanks. I’m always doing something. So you might be in a headspace like writing for some people takes a little bit more energy, a little bit more mental capacity rather than just sitting and be like, hey, who could I talk to? You know? So you might, in whatever energetic place they’re in, you’re always kind of getting something done. And I’m also a huge advocate of like, whatever you need to make it a little more fun and enjoyable, do it.

I don’t care how crazy you think it is or how harder judging yourself that I can’t believe I need this. Do other— are other people like this? Like I tell myself some days, like I gotta get stuff done and I’m like, how am I gonna get this done? I’m like, for whatever reason, my mom growing up would always do arts and crafts with us. So I’m like, how could I make this feel like arts and crafts right now?

And sometimes it means like instead of being at my desk and having good posture, my feet flat on the floor, I go down to my nice comfy leather couch and I get a cup of tea and I have my blanket on me and I get really comfortable. I’m like, Ooh, this feels good. And you know what? Then I’m really excited about doing that thing that seemed impossible trying to do my home office for some reason.

**John:** The other thing, maybe it’s a, I don’t know if it contradicts what you’re saying, but sometimes what I find really, really helpful is who’s one person, not who’s 100, not who are the 5 for today. It’s a combination of things. It’s setting a timer. I like, I have this little 30-minute sand timer and it’s a glass sand timer. So, I’ll set it for 30 minutes and I’ll sit and I’ll just be like, who is one person that comes to mind or that I would like to talk to? And then I might spend some— it’s like, and then sometimes I’ll just sit there in stillness, just doing nothing.

**Stephen:** Mm-hmm.

**John:** Not checking my email, not scanning LinkedIn for hopefully someone will pop. It’s just like, no. Sometimes that’s what I’ll do. Like, oh, this person popped to mind. That’s strange. I wonder what they’re up to. And then it might be, okay, I’ll start drafting an email to them. Hmm. This one’s kind of stuck. And then I’ll stop. And then I’ll say, okay, we’ll set that one aside. Who’s someone else that comes to mind? And then when the timer hits 30 minutes, I’m done for now. That’s, that’s another way to structure it.

**Stephen:** I like it. It’s, I would call this intentional stillness or stopping. Like you were just saying before, you got to take action. You got to do something. You got to move. Right. But it’s not about— because it’s— I’d rather have somebody do what you did. I’d rather have them say like, I’m going to carve out time on my day for this, even if it means if I’m just sitting there thinking about— I’m intentionally holding 30 minutes of space for this instead of like going and doom scrolling on social media or going checking a YouTube video or doing something that’s so unproductive.

And a lot of times, even to, like I said, breaking it down into all those different actions, I would often rather people— I’d rather see people say like, I’d like to see you spend a quality hour. On your job search every day, each day. And it could be a little different. Like one day you’re just like brainstorming people, another day it’s like you’re drafting copy, another day you’re going to send out some emails, but you are intentionally spending an hour each day. And then I also like to— people have a quick meeting with yourself at the end of the week just so you can actually see everything that you did do and how it all moved forward because you kept that habit, you kept that intention, and something kept getting done every day.

**John:** Yeah, in fact, I keep a writ— I have a, um, a spiral notebook, just old-fashioned spiral notebook like you’d use in college or high school. I just write the date and the person’s name.

**Stephen:** Well, you and I did in college. I don’t know about everybody else.

**John:** Okay, fair enough, fair enough. Dating myself once again. Anyway, but I find that writing the— writing the person’s name by hand.

**Stephen:** Yes.

**John:** Right. And I write their first and their last name And maybe what I did, or if they read, like, just— and then at the end of a week, like you’re saying, I can go backwards and see, oh wow, I’m telling myself that, you know, I haven’t talked to enough people and that I don’t have enough clients. Is that true? Well, look at that, you reached out to X number of people today and yesterday and this week. Hmm. Okay. Well, what’s true about that? Well, that’s it. I reached out to them. Does this mean that my business is doomed or I’ll never find another client to work with? No, it just means I haven’t heard from those people yet. So what?

**Stephen:** We’ve been talking about kind of like I said, like, I think people really get stuck on like, who am I going to contact? If I, if I, if I like, if you banned yourself from submitting to, uh, for job listings for like 2 weeks, you’re like, that’s not an option. What would you do? Right? Like that is not an option. So you’ll, you know, like I said, to kind of scan your social channels, your email, your phone for people to talk to.

The other habit I want you to get into as you start talking to these people that you already know, ask them for one recommendation. Is there at the end of the call, the interaction, is there one person you could recommend that I could talk to and be specific? Allow their brain to scan their, their, their brain to be able to scan for this person. Don’t be like, if you think of anyone, Don’t do that. Then people never have a recommendation. But like, do you know somebody who does this? Or I could learn from this, or I could talk to you about that. You know what, as a matter of fact, I do. Can you do an email introduction? That would be great. So if you get in the habit of always closing out these conversations with an ask of like, who’s one more person I could meet?

You’re slowly going to organically build your network. I’m always doing this. I know John’s always doing this. So that way people are always kind of coming to you and it’s like, I have to say, it’s At different times when I’m starting things, I kind of use this process, but once it gets going, I don’t even realize it. I call this outreach. I’m just doing outreach all the time. It no longer becomes like a task, a burden, a to-do list. It’s something I’m always doing.

**John:** I thought you said something interesting. You said at least an hour. I’ve talked to people that are the opposite extreme. They’re like, I spent 6— they’re trying to sit down and spend, you know, their, their equivalent previous workday of 8 hours or whatever, grinding it out. And it’s— I don’t know about what you think about that, but that just is death. Like,

**Stephen:** I want to be like, John, are you setting me up because you really want me to go nuts right now? Because you know how I feel about this. It’s— let me just get this out of the way. It’s absolutely— if you haven’t heard this before, I’m giving you permission right now. You don’t need my permission, but the whole 8-hour workday or any predetermined time that you’re being valued on your time for your work is Absolutely ridiculous in the context for what most of us do now. It’s ridiculous. Who cares? Like I always tell consulting clients, like you’re not judging me in the hours; you’re judging me on the value of what I’m giving you. I’m saving you time, saving you money, I’m saving you frustration. That is what you’re paying for. Who cares how long it’s taken me to do it?

And the same thing with your job search. You’re you’re right. And and also let’s give folks a little bit of grace because I remember when I first got laid off ages ago. I felt like I had to work an 8-hour day until I was like, but I keep getting all my work done like in 3 hours. And it kind of like, oh, right, I don’t have to fill up a day to like prove to my bosses that I’m a hard worker.

You know, I’m getting what needs to get done done. So it’s a reward now. So I get to go do other stuff. And I’ve learned, you know, we always talk about productivity in America. That’s a load of baloney. Like, employees aren’t productive. If you want productive employees, you will not trap them in an 8-hour workday. You will let them work however they want to work. They know what they need to get done. They’re adults. Supposedly you hired them. You should trust them. If you don’t, fire them and get it done. So I think you’re going to burn yourself out and get really disillusioned if you approach your job search like it’s a— like it’s the traditional job again.

**John:** It’s a replacement job. Your replacement job is finding a new one.

**Stephen:** Yeah, it’s still work. It’s still effort. You should be treating it with a high degree of intention. But I think I’d rather see a quality hour every day and that you’re enjoying it, you’re going to start to see the results that you’re going to start to see even in your own work. And I think a lot of us have the experience now of working remotely, that’s what I had. You’re like, wow, I’m kind of getting my job done a lot faster than I did when I was stuck in an office.

**John:** Also, I would challenge too, maybe it’s not a solid hour in a row, maybe it’s 2 30-minute blocks, and to start small. If you can’t If sitting for 30 minutes is torture, do 15. Do 2 15s. I’ve done this with projects. I just, for whatever reason, do not want to do this, cannot do this. It’s like, okay, well, I’ll do 15 minutes and then I’ll do another 15 minutes. And what will happen is if you— it’s like building a muscle. It’s like going to the gym for the first time.

You lift the little 1-pound dumbbell and you’re like, I can’t do this. And then you’re like, oh, I can do this. Let me try 3. Let me try 5. Same with this. Do 15 minutes. Oh, okay. That’s pretty good. Or 30 minutes. And then it’s like, you’ll get on a roll accidentally and then you’ll sit there longer and then you’ll be like, oh, that was pretty cool. I just did an hour and a half without even trying. The next day, oh man, I’m pushing a rock up a hill again. So what? I’ll do 30 minutes. Then I’ll take a break.

**Stephen:** I remember who once said it. Her first name’s Martha. Is it Martha Beck? I can’t remember. She always advocated for breaking things down into embarrassingly small tasks.

**John:** Yes. Yes. Why not?

**Stephen:** Which I love. Like she would say, like, like what you’re describing, she said like her first, her first task would be, um, open your laptop.

**John:** Yeah. Success.

**Stephen:** Done. Um, now turn it on, you know, and it is sometimes your brain just needs that little, it’s like cranking the window.

**John:** Yeah.

**Stephen:** You know, just like getting going. Depending on when you just lost your job, if it is possible, if you’re not, if you do have a little bit of a financial runway, I know too many people don’t, but I also tell people, depending on, especially if you’ve been at it for a while, if you’ve been at your, this career for like 10, 15, maybe 20 years and this happened to you, it might be this big reflection time. You might be actually going through something else in life. You’re like, I think I might wanna work differently or do something else. So actually, if you can give yourself, uh, a few weeks just to, to have some space because you’ve been on this grind of a path for so long, but don’t just sit around. Yeah. Do something that you’ve said, I’ve always wanted to do this, but I never had the time.

Well, now you have the time because back to John, what he mentioned earlier, it’s about movement. And another one of my quirky things that I’m a big advocate for is the back office brain. And what I mean by that is like we’re always thinking our conscious mind is going to figure everything out for us and we’re just going to think harder. We’re going to furrow our brows and certainly I’m going to get an answer.

But John and I know that’s not true. So if you could go for a walk or go Read some book you’ve been up, you’ve been wanting to read. You haven’t had the time, or spend more time with your kids, or you want to garden, and actually enjoy it. Like that’s the work. You will. You come back two weeks later. All of a sudden, you’re like, “Oh wow! I actually have a lot of ideas about how I want to approach this this job search, starting a business, whatever the heck it is that you want to do.” Because there’s other parts of your brain that’s actually working on it. You just have to trust it and have faith in it. That a lot of times when I’m really stuck on something, John, I recognize it now instead of like forcing myself to like. you know, tackle it for 2 hours.

And I’m like, I’m sending it to my back office brain. And then the next day when I’m waking up, usually it’s in the morning for me, I look in the inbox, my back office brain has some work there, and it’s like, oh, why don’t you try this? Why don’t you try that? I’m like, alright. It is like magic. I don’t know why. Like, they should be teaching kindergartners this stuff.

**John:** Well, I think what you’re also speaking to when you say the next morning, and I’ve done this with people as well, is create a little heat map of the day. Know your best energy. So as I continue to age—

**Stephen:** No, that’s not happening.

**John:** But after dinner, after like 6, 7 o’clock at night, there is nothing left on a lot of days. There is just no cognitive, creative. And I used to make that a problem. And then I realized, well, okay, it’s not that way anymore. So It is in the morning. So how can you time shift this? How can you make sure that in the morning you’re not doom scrolling and reading the news and all this other stuff that doesn’t really help you, and you’re using that time to be creative? So figuring those times out.

**Stephen:** I love that you said this. My sister called me last night at like 10 of 8, and it was the simplest—

**John:** You were already in bed? Well,

**Stephen:** I was watching this webinar. There’s like this new train that might be coming to like our part of the state, and I’m like, you know, I want to check this out. But I was tired. I was so engrossed in it, and it was the simplest of questions. And I said to her, I said, my brain’s just not there right now. I’ll talk to you tomorrow morning. But that’s how I’ve been too. I was never in college. I never pulled all-nighters and all that sort of thing. I was always like, I am done at 7 o’clock at night. You know what I mean? I’m toast. So I, I call it your peak performance period. Again, we’ve been diluted because of the 8-hour workday.

From my research, I was a history major. I read like tons of biographies. I— one of my questions I always ask entrepreneurs— I’ve interviewed over 500 of them, 500 of them between 2 podcasts— and most people only have 3 to 4 hours a day to do really good mental work. That’s it. So find out when it is for you and make the best use of it. And like, when it’s gone, get back at it tomorrow, or do a lower energy task. You know, stuff always has to get done. But—

**John:** And don’t hear that as like, oh well, I just got laid off, I need to spend 4 hours a day because Steven said that that’s how much I have. Exactly.

**Stephen:** I’d rather you go do something fun.

**John:** Go watch a movie. Go do something.

**Stephen:** Get away from the screens.

**John:** Okay, so people have made a list. They’re reaching out to people.

**Stephen:** They’ve made a list of people they know. Can I take that a little bit? Because it’s like, people you know, start there and then get in that habit as you get to talk to people, you’re asking for recommendations. So,

**John:** so there’s no filter. There’s no filter or rules in the beginning. It’s just like, oh, who’s in my phone? Oh, that person’s interesting. I love talking to them.

**Stephen:** Yeah. Allow your inner voice or like that back office brain to be excited about. Listen for that to be like, they— that part of your brain knows that you should talk to that person. Don’t even question it. Just talk to that person.

**John:** Okay.

**Stephen:** And be excited about it. And the next thing I would do is starting to think about like, what are your interests? What are you excited about? Kind of your values. And start thinking about, well, are there people or businesses or organizations that kind of reflect that, you know, and can I start reaching out to them? I always have people do this, like even if they do not have any job openings on their website, I still want you to reach out to them. Just be like, I love what you do. I always have. And this is my area of expertise. And here’s a few ideas I had for you. If you ever want to talk, let me know.

And so I think that also starts to help you understand that you have a lot more agency over where you work and how you work because we’re never taught that. We’re never taught to go find a job based on our values, what we’re interested in, and how can we apply whatever hard skill set that we’ve learned to that. We’re always just like, whatever hard skill set, whoever will take me. Drives me nuts when people tell me I’m just lucky enough to have a job. And I say, I’m like, you think that little of yourself? You deserve better than that. You’re not just lucky enough to have a job.

**John:** It pays really well, but you know, you can’t have it all.

**Stephen:** But my soul is simultaneously dying at the same time.

**John:** Yeah.

**Stephen:** So a big part of my work is like making your work work for you. And I think I, when people, John, when people lose their job and they get fired, I, I never, you know, everybody else does. They’re like, oh, I’m so sorry. I never say that. I say congratulations on your liberation. And they don’t know always how to take it, but I say it with such effervescence that I think that they know that I’m not being a jerk and that somehow they’re like, huh? I’m like, why did you say that? You know? And I’m like, here’s why, you know, you’ve been given an opportunity to like look at this thing so differently. So if that’s just happened to you, congratulations on your liberation.

**John:** So we’ve got lists, reaching out to people, reaching out different ways.

**Stephen:** What am I gonna say to them? This is always the classic. So the— what you’re going to say that I want you to just— I did share kind of the CliffsNotes on this earlier, but let’s dig into this a little bit. You feel like you’re asking them for something. Get over that. Remember, you want to lead with curiosity. You’re interested. You want to see how they’re doing. You’re having this space now to like reach out to these people that you just haven’t had time to do in a while because you’ve been so busy at work. So that’s the thing. Just be curious, be interested. Number 2, be honest. Like to say, this is where I’m at. Hey, I just got laid off. This is what happened.

I’m not quite sure what I want to do next, but you know, you’re somebody that popped into mind. I just want to see how you’re doing and I just, just wanted to see if you had time to chat. So I think those are the 2 most important things. Lead with curiosity and just be honest with your app, because I think a lot of times we feel like we have to tell the story or people are going to judge us or we have to say certain things. Like, if you feel that way, like, that’s exactly the person you should not be reaching out to right now. That’s a filter. Like, do not even— oh, but I think they work at this company, they know all these important people, and I know they’d have a lot of money. Is it worth it? Is it worth you not being yourself?

**John:** No. And start easy. Put that one at the bottom of the list. The way I like to think of this too is when you’re going to meet someone for dinner that you haven’t seen in a while, or a friend, you’re not driving to dinner being like, oh no, what are we going to talk about? I don’t know how to do this. Like, you’re just kind of naturally curious. There’s not that pressure there. So Is it different if it’s someone that you don’t know that well that maybe has been introduced to you? Yes. And if you’re approaching that conversation with like, what if we were just sitting down to coffee and we’re just going to talk for 30 minutes? It’s not a big deal. There’s nothing at stake here. But what I want to ask them—

**Stephen:** I want to offer an apology because I can’t believe I haven’t said this sooner, because I’m really on a soapbox about this one now, John.

**John:** I knew you’d get— that’s why I knew this would be so good.

**Stephen:** I mean, Here we’ve been doing it. You’ve been doing it. I’ve been doing it. We keep kind of guiding people like you’re all on your own doing this, that you should be thinking about this all by yourself. No, humans evolved to work together.

**John:** Mm-hmm.

**Stephen:** You should find other people who are in your similar situation or some good friends that you’ve, in a fun way, in a way that feels good to you, where you have this regular check-in, whether it’s in person, it’s on the phone, it’s on a Zoom call that you could be just sharing, like, how’d your week go? What are you, what are you learning about? That’s the other cool thing about this. process, you’re gonna learn about yourself.

And what do you learn about yourself? Totally. Do not go this alone. That is the other enormous myth that needs to end in career management in the Western world is stop thinking that it’s all on your shoulders. It’s all your fault. You, it’s, you are the one who let this happen. You need community. And those people also want to see you succeed. They also are gonna give you different insights and perspectives that you’re just not gonna think about all on your own. And to John’s point, this is another kind of movement action. It’s getting you out of your head. It’s about seeing what other people are going through. And even sometimes it’s, oh, just the way that this person said it just got me thinking. You need that. You need that fodder. You need these different perspectives, these different insights.

**John:** Another something along those same lines that popped in my head too was I’ve also encouraged previous clients to volunteer.

**Stephen:** Yes.

**John:** There’s a— I’ll put it in the notes. I think it’s called Volunteer America or something. It’s basically volunteer operated. It’s a volunteer database by city, by location. And I found just by, I don’t know, I did like a 2-minute search and I found a whole bunch of things that fit their interests and they went and did some volunteering. And it was a way to fill, not to like fill time, but it was a way to like get out of their routine. It forced them to get out of the house. They love meeting new people. It was in an area of town that they were interested in. I don’t know if it led to a job, but it was something to do and it was a way to meet new people and just essentially get out of their heads too.

**Stephen:** Yes. Yes. Like that is, I always, I always remind people when you are helping other people and you’re focused on their challenge or problem, you are not focused on your challenge or problem. And you’re actually, and your back office brain is like, thank God they’re focused on this over here so I can finally do the real work that needs to be done over here. And your brain can actually start getting some clarity and do stuff. And after you’ve had your volunteer time, you come back home after a few hours, you’re like, huh, I got some new perspective on this. I got some new insight just because you were so focused on somebody else and not yourself. It sounds so counterintuitive, but you, especially if you’ve been out of work for a while, it’s something you need. And simultaneously, if you’ve been out of work for a while, I think it’s not a bad idea to start volunteering and using your skills again.

So that way, as you’re out in the world, there is something, there’s some, you’ve heard this old adage and I have to say there might be still something to this old adage. Like it’s easier to find a job when you have a job. And to like expand on this conversation, I think it’s easier to find a job when you’re still upping your skills and you’re still improving. You’re still meeting new people. People just feel that energy. You just don’t seem as desperate. You just, you’re just kind of like, and you also were confident. You’re kind of coming at your level. You’re, you feel like you’re not jobless anymore. You’re working on these different projects. You’re using your skill. You’re learning new things. And that comes up in the interview and people can kind of sense that excitement. That passion, or that you’re some— that you’re that kind of a person who’s still trying to better themselves. You’re not waiting around for somebody just to employ them.

**John:** And totally along those lines, a few years ago I encouraged someone— I think they were interested in data analytics or something, and they had met someone that was in that field. And I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but I challenged— I said, why don’t you just find some way to serve them? I really like this idea of volunteering, but there’s something about this word service, which is— and it’s not necessarily like serve to get, it’s just serve to serve. So it’s like, oh well, they have this problem with all this data. What if you just solved some of it for them and just showed them what was possible? Like, what if you just saw— like, you’re not doing anything in it. You have this time.

You have the time, so why not use some of it to activate your brain to solve a problem that they have and just share it with them? Just say, hey, what do you think of this? They did that. It led to— I think it led to part-time work, and then eventually they found full-time work, and then someone else picked up what they were doing and did it full-time for a while. So yes, there’s— you don’t know where it’s going to lead, just helping someone with something that you’re able to help them with.

**Stephen:** And also, you challenge yourself. You might not have always been opposed to consulting, you know, maybe be a little bit more open to that. So it’s kind of like you’re testing out the waters and you’re getting paid while you’re doing it. So maybe it can lead to something. Maybe you’re inside and then you see what the full-time opportunities are, or you’re like, ooh, I’m glad this is a consulting project. It’s going to wrap in 2 weeks because I definitely don’t want to work with this place. You

**John:** know?

**Stephen:** Totally. I mean, I think that’s like a longer-term thing that needs to change in work. We have to figure out a better— the only way you’re ever going to really know if you like working there or if they like Like you working there is like you got to do work. You know, there’s no—it’s terrible. Like the amount of interview hijinks and hoops that people are being made to go through. I mean, it’s like becoming like a job. It’s like pay me to go through this process. You know, I mean, I did one of these just to experiment to see what people go through. It was—I think it was like six years ago. It was one of those like coding academies, and they’re looking for coaches.

I mean, I had to do like a group interview, two rounds of single interviews. I had to like do a. a couple— I’d do a class, you know, like a faux class to see how I had to like pretend I was coaching somebody one-on-one, you know. And then, um, I was living a distance, uh, from this particular opportunity at the time. And I— and they, they say, so what do you think? And I said, well, I’m not excited about the 40-minute commute each way. So that was my back office brain saving me because the job could have been easily done anywhere in the world. But crazy, they have to have you be in the same geographic location.

**John:** Didn’t work for you. What are some unconventional—

**Stephen:** You haven’t got enough unconventional advice out of me yet.

**John:** Well, there’s got to be more. No. Well, no, I love, I love, I love stuff that’s like in plain sight or so obvious, but people are like, well, that would never work. Uh, oh, I never thought of that. Oh, it’s right in front of me. I could do that. Like, are there any other

**Stephen:** Another thing, just with consulting, um, you might see an opportunity where like, boy, I’m really excited about this, but the pay is not what I want. Well, go through the process and then pitch yourself as a consultant. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten consulting gigs doing that. Um, you know, I

**John:** mean, say more about the mechanics of that.

**Stephen:** Well, I just did it recently. Uh, the city where I live, very small city, and, um, just doesn’t have the funds. It’s a very small city to be able to hire me with the skill sets that I have of what I expect to be paid, of what, what my value is. And so like, hey, I want to help this place, but I see this more as a consulting opportunity for the amount of money that you have. And they’re still going to get a ton of value out of what it is I’m doing.

And they said, okay, you know, and so sometimes you just, you know, it’s about— I think the other exercise we need to go through here, every, everyone listening and, and John, Is people are atrocious at understanding and then explaining their worth. We always think that we just have to take whatever we can get. It’s back to like I’m just so lucky enough to have a job. We when we always letting the corporations and the companies and the big bosses, everybody else decide how much money you’re going to be make. No, please. If there’s one thing you take away from this interview, like you decide. How much money you are going to make and what you need to live your life. You know, not just take what you’re given.

**John:** But you don’t understand, I have to feed my family, Stephen.

**Stephen:** Yes, and they need more money. Um, I think, I think what it does when you start understanding your value and being able to explain it to people, what it does, John, you start seeing other options. Because right now people have like super blinders on, a very narrow view of what they think available work is. And it’s still surprising, even 2024 blows my mind how vast majority of the American population still thinks traditional employment is the only way that they can make income.

So when you start really trying to understand why do people want to hire me, you have to— when a corporation is hiring you, they are like, they’re making a profit off of you, right? So when you become a consultant, you know, all of that money comes back. Yes, you’re gonna have to pay taxes, and there’s healthcare, and there’s Plus, I’m not—don’t get me wrong—but they are making a profit margin off of you. So you can make a lot more money being out in in in the world as a consultant.

So it’s so important to go through this process in this journey if you’re looking for a job to really understand like what do I want to be paid and why? Like I, by the way, I have a lifestyle calculator if everybody wants to download it for free. Lifeskills that matter dot com slash calculator because everybody’s always chasing after money or what the core person says that you should get paid. I said, what if we what if we like calculate this? Like how much?

How much does my lifestyle cost in a year? And let’s work backwards from that. Like nobody tells you that’s possible because John, I think most people really don’t give a crap about becoming a millionaire. I really don’t. I think most people are just like, cool, this is what I need. And this is how I’m gonna live. Okay. Now I know. And so you kind of work backwards from that. So understanding what you value and how other people are valuing your skills, um, back to what I said, like how maybe graphic design in certain circumstances is becoming less valuable now. Right. But now you see a lot of people talking about the There’s like basically copy editing for AI that’s becoming more valuable.

So just, you have to kind of be aware in the marketplace or, or how people perceive you of what is valuable or not valuable, or just even how you present yourself. Again, I, I usually end up getting a lot of opportunities in life because I go ask. Like most people are afraid, like we’ve been talking for almost an hour now. People are just afraid to ask for what they want. Like I’m not.

And then I, and it’s about, it’s a yes/no ratio thing. Like I always tell people I have the same yes/no ratio as you. I just ask a lot more. So that’s why it seems like I’m getting a lot more, but it’s just like I ask more. So I think, um, back to like, yeah, you have a family and I, by the way, I’ve interviewed tons of people who have families and it’s interesting. A lot of people actually start a business when they have their first born, which has blew my mind. Usually when people go through some sort of crisis situation, healthcare, financial, or a positive thing like having a baby is when they decide to really upend their life and restructure it of how it’s gonna work for them. Yeah. Yeah.

So I hear you that you have mouths to feed, but I think the more you can dig into like how you value yourself, you’re going to start to see more options or be more open to more options that maybe you can get a full-time job, but maybe you’ll have something on the side that’s only going to take you a couple of hours a week, but it’s a consulting opportunity. Or we’re seeing that now how people are actually doing 2 or 3 high-paying jobs because they’re using technology to make that job that much more efficient so that they can do 2 jobs jobs in one workday now, you know. Um, not all corporations like that this is happening, but hey, more power to people for trying that out there. Or you might go through a big season of, of wanting to make a lot of money, but you’re gonna save it.

Like I always tell people, I’ve always lived at a certain dollar amount, and then when I’ve made a lot, I’ve sucked it into savings accounts and investments and real estate. So that way, I, I think a lot of times people get very addicted. It’s very common as your salary goes up, so do your lifestyle costs. And that’s why you really wanna understand how much money do you really need to live your ideal life? lifestyle, or what are the things that you’re willing to compromise on or, um, spend more money on or spend less money on? So that way you’re in like this, this range through the course of your life of like, that’s what you need. So you don’t get addicted to more money.

**John:** No. When it comes back, I do this with people too, coming back to what is true. I’ll ask people, I say, do you, you don’t have to tell me the number, but do you know how much it costs you to live every month? Most people I talk to say maybe slash no.

**Stephen:** No, they have no idea how much money they even spent last month. That’s what I always tell people, like, how much money did you make last year? They’re always so proud to tell me.

**John:** Oh yeah, no, everyone knows that number.

**Stephen:** I’m like, how much money did you spend last year? They’re like, I don’t know.

**John:** Yeah, there’s less money. Yeah, so, but knowing, yes, whether you’re employed or not, knowing what that number is, is power. Knowing that number is— it changes the game because it’s like, well, that’s how much I need a month. This job doesn’t pay as much as I think it should, and it will meet my— I can still meet my needs. Okay, do I want to take this job because it’s going to give me the experience, or do I want to pass on it and look for something else? But at least now you know. Same people, people talk to me about going out on their own. I’m like, well, how much does it cost you to live every month? How much money do you have in the bank? It’s become— some of this just becomes a math problem.

**Stephen:** One thing I want to caveat, I want to see, because it happens out there especially. I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it too. Sometimes there’s a lot of this talk going on, which is great, but sometimes, uh, people take it a teeny bit too far that they’ve overestimated and overvalued their skills. They’re asking for way too much for where they’re at. Mm-hmm. And then they’re like, how come I’m not getting hired? How come nobody’s looking at me? Because you’re, there’s such a gap, you know, there’s such, there’s like, it’s, you’re not completely being truthful or you haven’t really done your homework about exactly how much your current skill set at your experience level is truly valued.

So that is something I want people to be aware of too, because there’s, there’s people who overvalue, there’s people who undervalue. I’d say people, most people undervalue their worth and their skills, but that is something to keep an eye on. I think, um, when you really, I found back to like getting the, the, the work that you really want where you’re getting paid what you want and you’re doing how you want to do it. And, um, it’s very satisfying. It’s purposeful. That requires back to what we’ve been talking about today. It’s about reaching out to actual humans, to companies and entities that share your values and they appreciate your work skills. It’s also about sharing your work, you know, having a portfolio, no matter what your profession is there, you should have some mechanism by which you are sharing what it is that you’re doing and that you’re continually trying to improve your skills.

And people see that because people like— I’m in an area where you know, there’s a work culture where people are, you know, I’m out in kind of a more of a natural area and people, uh, their work ethic is a little just different, shall we say. And I think I get a lot of opportunities because they’re like, oh my gosh, he actually gets it done. Like he says what he means. And people, you can’t fake that. And people will see that. So if you can, you, if you know in your heart of hearts, like you are a super competent person, that is a huge advantage. I think so many times the super competent people don’t even realize how valuable they are. that like employers are— will crawl over nails to find you because there are so many people who just aren’t competent or they just don’t care. They don’t care about doing a good job or improving.

**John:** I think that’s the title for this episode, Crawling Over Nails to Be Found.

**Stephen:** Ask employers, they will. They will have that. I mean, there’s so many— like there’s this skills gap, right? There’s so many job openings, but then And there’s so, and there’s so many people looking for jobs, but yet we continue to have this problem. And there’s a lot of ingredients for why that’s happening. But I think one is, uh, you know, it is improving your skills and putting in that effort and you have to do it for yourself. Don’t, don’t, you don’t have to do it for this corporation. You don’t have to fall into a trap. I think the mechanisms of like, when you know how much money you really wanna make, you understand your values, you understand the time and energy of how you would like to be getting better at something.

That’s kind of how you hack capitalism. I know a lot of people like to be really down on the system, but I don’t see it changing anytime soon. So, so in a weird way, figure out how to make it work for you, right? The corporations have found out how to make it work for them forever, right? So like now we get a chance to figure out how to make it work for us.

And I do naively believe it is possible. Is it harder for certain groups of people than others? Yes. That’s part of my work. I want to make it easier and more accessible for more people because it absolutely should be. It’s ridiculous. But, um, yeah, let me just do a quick recap. You’re looking for a job. Um, get out of your head. As John said, go move, take action in a way that makes sense for your energy level throughout the day.

Go talk to humans, be interested, be curious. Check in with your values. You get given this opportunity. What do you want to do next? What do you want to improve? And reach out to these folks, follow up with them. Be sure to ask for introductions, you know, one person from every interaction that you have, and try to understand your value so that we can start to see more options and challenge your assumptions about what— like I always tell people, I never thought it would work for myself. I never thought I would do sales. Funny story, I ended up starting a sales training business and it did. did really well, and I sold it. So what stories are you telling yourself that you need to challenge yourself?

**John:** Yes, 100%.

**Stephen:** Thank you, John.

**John:** Thank you. So where can people find you if they want to— I don’t know, are you doing conversations with people? What, what do you have? I have communities now.

**Stephen:** It’s back to like, don’t go it alone. I have a career clarity community of practice. So

**John:** what’s it called?

**Stephen:** Um, if you can go to lifeskillsatmerritt.com/community and it’s called Career Clarity Community of Practice.

**John:** Okay.

**Stephen:** So I also have a community of practice for anybody interested in doing kind of a solopreneur type business, community of practice for anybody interested in improving their self-management and one for outreach. And that’s the one nobody asks for, but everybody needs. So again, it’s about practicing and learning these skills, these life skills. That’s what I learned as I was teaching people about business. I’m like, gosh, they’re not getting it. I’m like, oh, because they They’ve— they don’t really understand basic life skills of self-awareness, curiosity, and connection. And as work keeps changing faster and faster, those are those timeless skills that we all need. We were never taught them in our traditional education system because they can’t easily be measured. They can’t be graded very easily. And the only way to get good at them is you have to practice them with other humans so you can challenge each other. You can see patterns and trends in each other, and that’s how you get better at these skills. You can’t just take a standardized test on self-awareness. It just doesn’t work.

The post 125: Avoiding Networking and Job Search Futility with Stephen Warley appeared first on John Poelstra.

Seth Vore joins me again to recap the final leg of his family’s 6,000 mile boat journey. We also revisit the original question that turned this dream into reality.

All songs licensed under Creative Commons

## Transcript

*This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.*

**John:** Alright, we’re back talking to Captain Seth. It’s been a number of months. I want to say this is the final voyage, but I was just joking with him before he started that like there’s— he’s got to come up with something after this so we can keep following up on what he’s up to in life. So Captain Seth, welcome back aboard.

**Seth:** Well, thank you, John. It’s good to be back and good to continue to share this journey with you.

**John:** Yeah, so last time we checked in, well, according to my site, the last thing I published was from June in 2023. I believe you were in DC.

**Seth:** That’s right. Yeah.

**John:** And you had 1,000 miles left.

**Seth:** That’s right. So to catch folks up, we were on America’s Great Loop. Great Loop is a 6,000-mile circumnavigation of the East Coast of the US. Our particular journey Started in St. Louis, Missouri. We went north first to the Great Lakes and turned around, and in the fall we descended down the rivers. We crossed the Gulf of Mexico around this time last year. We were on the west coast of Florida heading to the Keys, and then we ended up over in the Bahamas. And then last time we checked in, yeah, we were on the Chesapeake Bay. We’d just gone up the Potomac to Washington, D.C., and spent about a week there and we’re about to enter the Chesapeake heading north to go finish our loop. And so like you said, about another 1,000 miles to go of East Coast up the Atlantic and then through New York, Erie Canal, Hudson River, and back into the Great Lakes to finish that loop. Loopers, as they call ’em, call that crossing your wake. When your boat crosses over the wave that your bow made when you started the journey, that’s crossing your wake. And and completing the trip. So yeah, last time we caught up, we were on the Chesapeake and we’ve since finished that journey. And I’m sure we’ll talk a little bit more about that and kind of reentered life at home.

**John:** But let’s go backwards. It’s February 2024. How long have you been home?

**Seth:** We moved home in September, so So, boy, that time has gone by fast.

**John:** But— So what have you been doing? I mean, you don’t have a job. I mean, you’ve probably like run out, you’ve like watched all of the things you can find on Netflix. I mean, what have you been doing?

**Seth:** You know, oddly, yeah, life has not been boring. I’ve been doing, you know, opportunities kind of come out of the woodwork when you make yourself available to them by doing something like this. So through some of my connections and interactions from this trip, a job kind of came up to work for a nonprofit that is all about appreciation of antique and classic boats, and that is my jam. I think when we first talked ever on your podcast, you introduced me as Captain Seth, the owner of Portland Boat Tours. Yes. And I had you out on my boat and we floored under the rivers and talked about the history of Portland and the bridges and all things like that. So clearly I am passionate about antique and classic boats. Well, we got to go to the Antique Boat Museum on our trip, which is in Clayton, New York, and just down the street there is the headquarters for the Antique and Classic Boat Society. And I’ve already been a member for many, many years and have actually done some work for them in social media space. But through that interaction and attending the International Boat Show, I was offered a position to do advertising sales for that organization. And I think had I not done this trip, made those connections, and had the availability after this trip to be able to engage in something like that, it probably wouldn’t be an opportunity that I would ever even be approached to pursue or think that I could handle. And it’s certainly outside of my comfort zone. But anyway, that’s the current flavor of the week. Uh, I’m, I’m doing advertising sales both in print and online and, uh, enjoying a new challenge. So that’s, that’s soaking up some of my time.

**John:** Very cool. Very cool. So you leave DC, you go up the Potomac, DC, then what happens?

**Seth:** Um, we, we re-enter the Chesapeake Bay, we head north, uh, and there’s just some absolutely— you could spend a whole year probably on the Chesapeake Bay just exploring little towns with amazing history. One of our favorites was Annapolis. Just pulled in there and beautiful marina right in the heart of everything, walk to everything. We walked over to the US Naval Academy and got to tour the campus. We attended church in the church there on campus. And our daughter actually just kind of fell in love with that, the rigor that they have there for their students, the discipline, the leadership that they, ingrained in our US soldiers. And so I think it was a life-changing spot for a lot of us to see that. And we were also able to, later in the summer, we cruised right by on the Hudson River West Point and were able to see the Army version of that military academy. And compare and contrast. So, but yeah, the Chesapeake, just so much nautical history, especially like every town has a naval or nautical museum of some kind, and just very rich with tradition and history. And so we made it up through the Chesapeake into the Delaware River. There’s a little thin canal that connects those 2, that was cut for commerce.

And so we went in and transited that and got into the Delaware River, which took us into the open Atlantic Ocean at Cape May, New Jersey. And so I think where we left off last time, we talked a little bit about this trip being very protected, very safe, not a lot of open water. And we, in fact, we talked about a couple of the exceptions to that, one being where we went across the Atlantic Ocean. crossed the Gulf Stream over to the Bahamas, and one where we crossed the Gulf of Mexico, at least a little bit of it that we did in a 22-hour overnight journey. Those, those are some of the open waters, but, but this trip from Cape May, New Jersey north is not protected by barrier islands. The rest of the Atlantic is, so that’s called the Intracoastal Waterway. It’s protected by barrier islands, and so it’s a canal cut. mostly natural, some man-made, that gets you all the way from Florida up to Cape May, New Jersey. And when you round that cape, you are in the open Atlantic Ocean. There’s no real other way to transit, at least this size of a boat, on that portion of the journey. And it was actually one of the more epic days, I think, looking back on over a year on this trip. One of the more epic days we had, we, we got started before sunrise because we wanted to maximize. When you get a good day weather-wise on the Atlantic, you want to capitalize on it. So we’ve been pinned down for a couple of days. We saw this good weather day coming, and so we wanted to maximize. And it’s one of those days where you start off with kind of a goal of where you want to get to, and then maybe you have a stretch goal for if the weather’s really looking good. we’ll push on and go to this other place. And if it’s really, really looking good, well, let’s not even talk about that because it’s so out of the realm of possibility. But we, we, we got up before daylight. We made it into the Atlantic. We’ve— it was rough but not terrible. And we passed our goal, which was Atlantic City.

We had— that was going to be our first checkpoint. We would turn into Atlantic City. And then there’s not a ton of places that you can escape waves and weather. along that portion of the Atlantic coast, even though it’s densely populated in that area. There’s just not a lot of facilities to duck in. And so once you pass Atlantic City, you’re a little bit committed to a few more hours of boating. And then we, we ended up that would— at our stretch goal spot, weather was still good, and we were still all having a good time. And so we thought, you know what, we can make, we can make it to safe harbor. In New York City, we can make it all the way to the Statue of Liberty, and our plan was to anchor behind the Statue of Liberty, and which still blows my mind that that’s a thing that you’re allowed to do, that you can do, that people do. And so, and so that’s what we did. And everybody has a different impression of entering New York Harbor. You know, I think back from immigrants, everyone, you know, writes about or has this story. And lately, you know, what we were concerned about is traffic, and so much commercial traffic of big ships coming and going, of tourist ships come, you know, carting hundreds and thousands of tourists around New York Harbor. We didn’t experience any of that, and that’s because as soon as we rounded the corner into the Hudson River, still with a couple of hours to go to get really into the protected part, a storm kicked up. And the Coast Guard came over the radio and said everybody off the water, seek, uh, you know, a safe place to anchor, uh, because this is a very serious storm and, uh, we’re concerned about everybody’s safety. So nobody was out there. It was very, very eerie, uh, coming up that portion into, into New York City.

**John:** Wait, but why were you out if they said everyone had to go in?

**Seth:** We didn’t. We, we looked at our options for a safe spot to go, and we— that was the closest safe spot that we could see to go. Everything else was a, uh, a more difficult option. And there are marinas, but they’re expensive and booked out, and we didn’t want to cruise into somewhere in a storm, try to dock in a storm at a place that we didn’t know if they could take us or not take us, and all of the things. And so we were very lucky in that the storm missed us. It went kind of northeast of us. But we certainly saw the ferociousness of the storm from the boat and could see the lightning crashing and hear the thunder. It was just shaking. And, you know, we were fatigued at that point, having gone, you know, and we were since before sunrise. It was coming on sunset, is right around the time we’d be dropping anchor. We really had 2 choices. One was to speed up and drop anchor before the storm would really get to our position. The other is slow down, take the storm at sea while we were still moving, which in a lot of cases can be a safer way to go, and then, and then go and anchor afterwards, which would mean we’d be doing that in the dark, which isn’t also a very fun thing to be doing. So we chose to, to go slow at our current speed, so we would be anchoring just at kind of twilight where we would have enough light to see, but it wouldn’t be dark. And that actually ended up being the right call. The storm kind of missed us. We didn’t get the brunt of it. We pulled in right as the sun was kind of headed to set, but it wasn’t dark yet. We were still getting some twilight, and we were able to drop anchor right behind the Statue of Liberty. And that eerie calm of no boats being out there, Right as the storm passed, that went away and the tourist boats started firing right back up. They all want to see the Statue of Liberty at night. They’re party cruises. You hear loud music, bachelorette parties. Everything is just raging out there. And the commercial traffic started up again. So it was a very, very unique way to enter such an iconic place. It was really special. I think we’ll all, for the adversity reasons, but also just the epicness reasons, I always remember that day as one of the most epic on this trip because it was just so unique in so many ways.

**John:** Now, I remember in an earlier conversation you said that you only drove a certain speed. There’s an optimal speed to not— to get the best gas mileage. Was this one of those times where you just kind of were like, let’s just get there?

**Seth:** Correct. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, there were a handful of times where that was necessary to outrun something that we were worried about or get in somewhere at a time that, that was important to us. And this was one where we don’t mind burning a little extra fuel to get somewhere safe when we wanted to get there. So yeah, worked out very well in this case.

**John:** So you stop and see the Statue of Liberty, I assume?

**Seth:** Yeah. So you can’t just go dinghy over and walk up on the Statue of Liberty. So, so we anchored that night behind the statue, which which was incredible. And then to see the sunrise come up over the city was awesome. And then we moved the boat from that anchorage because it’s very rocky there. You can imagine all these tour boats that are heading over to the Statue and Ellis Island. They’re throwing up waves because they’re moving people quickly. And so it’s not the most peaceful sleep you’ve ever had in your life. It is epic, but it’s not the most peaceful night’s sleep. And then we moved to a marina where that was kind of our home base. And we were able to do all of the Manhattan things. I saw some Broadway shows. All the sites, the 9/11 Memorial, some things that that were really great. And and then we continued up from there up the Hudson River, and so a few more days’ journey up the Hudson River before turning into the Erie Canal, which is a very historic kind of experience. We we had done locks before, but on the inland rivers. These are different locks. They’re you know, they’re antiques for one, and they’re much smaller scale than a lot of big river locks that handle commercial traffic. This is really entirely recreational traffic at this point on the Erie Canal. So we did that. We took a right turn on the Oswego Canal, which dumped us out into Lake Ontario, and then that re-entered the Great Lakes for us. So we actually spent a lot of time right there in kind of upstate New York area. Well, we were in New York from the time we entered the Hudson River all the way until we entered Canada. So Lake Ontario to that Clayton, New York, St. Lawrence River area. We spent a few weeks there in the summer. Absolutely loved that water. And then started our journey through Canada, which is its own whole adventure.

**John:** Now, do you have to do anything different with that? What just occurred to me as you’re talking is you’re going from Like regular water to saltwater. What do you call regular water?

**Seth:** Just freshwater.

**John:** Freshwater, okay. So do you have to do anything different with the boat? Does it hurt the boat to go back and forth between the different kind of water?

**Seth:** No, if you’re doing it maybe forever for good or something like that, there are some different things you can do. It can affect the type of bottom paint that you paint the bottom of the boat with because different critters live in each of those things. And so there’s different paints that are designed for one or the other. There is also corrosion that can happen in saltwater. actually can happen in freshwater as well. So what you do is you put sacrificial anodes of a particular type of metal on your boat, and that prevents things like your propeller from getting damaged or your propeller shaft from rusting through and then falling off or those kinds of things. And so the material that you use in freshwater is different than you would use in saltwater, and then there’s a compromise in between that you might use if you go back and forth. And so making sure your boat is set up to, to handle that. But other than that, no, there’s not a like, okay, we’re out of salt, we’re back in fresh, these are the things we’re going to do. To be honest, freshwater is so much more forgiving. Saltwater, you know, it gets crunchy on your decks, it corrodes metal when it gets on there, it leaves a residue. It’s just fairly nasty to, you know, you always are washing the boat down at the end of the day to try to keep that at bay. And it was refreshing to be back in freshwater where None of that was the case. And, and the same when you go swimming, you know, we swam pretty much the entire year right off our boat. And so you get that saltwater kind of crunchiness, you always are going to rinse yourself off. Freshwater, we swam in water that’s cleaner than, you know, any bathwater we have around here. So that was just really a great turn when we got back into freshwater for sure.

**John:** How much expertise, how much for someone like me that knows absolutely nothing, I’ve been on some boats, How— like, what’s the knowledge gap that— so for someone like me, that if I really wanted to do something like this, I mean, from where I’m sitting, there’s like an infinite number of things that I would need to know. It’s impossible. I couldn’t do it. How— I have like 3 questions, which is, uh, how, how complicated is it? How hard would it be to learn? And how big is the knowledge gap? Answer whatever question makes the most sense there.

**Seth:** Yeah, it is. It is not that difficult to learn it. So much of it you can learn kind of like on-the-job training. You just get out there and do it.

**John:** Sink or swim.

**Seth:** Yeah. I mean, there’s basic boating knowledge that you need for sure before you turn the key the very first time, right? There are safe boating courses you can take. There’s more advanced things you can do to prepare yourself that way. The organization the nonprofit that puts together the resources for this trip, like the maps and marinas you want to go to, all that kind of stuff. They put on training courses throughout the year. Some, some of them are online, some are in person, like 4 different conferences in person per year in different places around the Strip. So there are ways to learn all aspects of it, whether it’s the boating aspect, the planning aspect, the what kind of a boat would I need for this, the All the logistics stuff, like all the questions that you might have, can be answered in those things. But it used to be very possible that someone with just a moderate amount of any kind of boating knowledge could just get a boat appropriate for the journey and start, and that would be fine. You could, you could do that. The only thing really preventing that that’s changed these days is insurance. insurance over COVID. A lot of people bought boats, and then there were a lot of hurricanes and terrible storms and things, and so a lot of boats had claims. And so insurance kind of got wise and said, okay, well, where’s our risk? Our risk is just that somebody that has a moderate amount of boating knowledge that wants to do a 7,000-mile trip and, you know, enter New York Harbor in a storm. And so they, they’ve tightened that up a little bit, but it only means that you need to have more boating experience on a similarly sized or showing an increasing size boat throughout your boating experience so that they see a trajectory that, okay, this person is someone we can insure and handle this journey. So that’s really the only thing.

**John:** But there’s no special license or anything, is it? Like, I could have driven your boat. Not that you would let me, but—

**Seth:** No, it’s Most states require like a boating education card. In Oregon, we do it online. It’s kind of like a video game. You answer questions like, you know, there’s a green buoy and a red buoy, which way do you go? And you click the click and then you get your boating education card. Both my kids got them at 12 years old and they’re, you know, ready to go. So that’s, that’s the only level of, yeah, official training that you need to do such a thing.

**John:** So in terms of a timeline, like beginning to end for someone that didn’t know anything to going on this trip in today’s world, like we’re talking, I don’t know, a year of like going to conferences and doing stuff or 2 years or like?

**Seth:** Yeah, I would think a couple years. I think a year probably in basic boating kinds of things. And then a year when you’re getting closer and serious, probably the year preceding the trip. Go to some conferences. The conferences are actually on the route in season. So like they have one in Annapolis and they have one in Florida and they have one down the rivers in Alabama in the fall. And so you go to those and get that information. So if you don’t have it by then, you pull your boat into one of those and then that’s going to prepare you for the next quarter ahead. So you pick up knowledge, you know, of the local waterways just before you’re going to use it, which can sometimes be easier than learning a whole year’s worth of stuff, forgetting it by the time you get there. And then you’re like, what did they— that guy say? He either said definitely go here or definitely do not go here. Now, which was it? I checked my notes. So yeah.

**John:** So you get into Canada. Where did we last leave off in Canada? A lake in Canada?

**Seth:** Yeah, Canada. So we entered Canada at Kingston.

**John:** Did you have to show your passports?

**Seth:** It’s an online check-in. So we had to show them with our face. Really? Yeah. That we are real people and that we really have passports.

**John:** It’s like video. Like you have to— Yeah. Okay.

**Seth:** Yeah.

**John:** Do you have to get off the boat or?

**Seth:** No. So, well, in Canada we did. You had to be standing at a phone. Like you pick up the red phone off this dock and there’s like a dozen places you can go. You pick Pick up this phone and someone answers, and they ask you questions about your passport number. And do you have a dog? And kind of food is on board and booze? And are you importing this or that? And and that’s it. And I think they talked to each person. If I remember right, we passed the phone around, and they they were fine and convinced. And then the same similar thing with reentry into the U.S. It was a like a FaceTime call, and they wanted to see everybody’s face. and their passports and answer those same kind of questions. Are you importing livestock on board or anything like this? And so that one was even easier because you can do that anywhere, you know, in between the Canadian port you left and the US port you’re entering. You don’t have to be at the red phone, which kind of surprised us in Canada. We weren’t expecting that, but it worked out just fine. Uh-huh. So yeah, so then we ended up in Canada. The stretch of Canada is called the Trent-Severn Waterway. goes from Trenton, uh, is the beginning of it. And it’s this series of locks similar to the Erie Canal. A unique thing about Canada, they are also antique locks, but they’re operated by people, humans, with, uh, little kind of turnstile things. And they’re pushing huge gears to open these gates to move your boat in, and then they flood the thing with a manual valve. They flood it with water, and then you raise up, and they open the other gate, you go cruising on through. And each of these locks is very scenic. They have gardens there. They pride themselves between boats coming through, what are they going to do? So they plant gardens and they maintain grounds. And each of these little towns in Canada was just quaint and magical and awesome. And in, in that stretch, there’s not really marinas. You just, wherever you get for that night, there’s docks next to those locks. And so you just tie up next to a lock And that’s where you are. And it’s usually right near the town, so you can walk in and get groceries or go to restaurants. And this is when everybody wants to be outside in summer in Canada anyway, and so they have concerts in the park and just fun farmers markets and things that you can go and do and experience, which were just really awesome. And so that’s like a whole section of the trip, is this Trent-Severn. And I should note that This is a route option, so you can stay completely in the US if that’s your choice. You can take the— you kind of bypass Niagara Falls. You don’t want to try to go up Niagara Falls. It’s not advised, but there’s a lock that takes you around Niagara Falls into Lake Erie, and then you go around kind of Detroit and up the east coast of Michigan to get back to Lake Michigan. But we prefer the Canadian route just because of how scenic and Awesome.

**John:** You mentioned that these locks were manual. How do the other locks work?

**Seth:** Big, like, electric motors that drive the gears. So they— an operator, usually operated by a single person, they just push the button that says, you know, we got a boat in, he’s going up, you know, hit go, and then it does everything else kind of automatically. It closes the gate, floods the chamber, opens the other gate, lets you out, rings the bell. But in Canada, these were all manual. anyone. Really cool and mostly run by college students that are off on summer break. And so they’re out there walking around and around and opening gates for us. And everybody was super friendly and kind and caring too. We just really enjoyed it.

**John:** So what’s next after that?

**Seth:** Yeah, well, so there’s 2 other big bodies of water in Canada that the canal kind of gets you connected to. One is Georgian Bay, and the North Chan. Big open blue water, granite boulders, kind of— it reminds me a lot of the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia where tree-lined hills kind of just end at the water level. And for us, this was an excellent way to kind of end our journey. Is, you know, we saw everything from the huge cities of New York, D.C., and some of the big towns in Florida even. But this kind of secluded, not a lot of folks around, no big cities really, a lot of anchoring in remote anchorages kind of all by ourselves, or maybe just a boat or two, was a great way to decompress and kind of think our thoughts about the whole trip and what was to come. And Really enjoy the the natural beauty, the water. We did a lot of swimming and dinghying around, adventuring, a couple of little you know exploration kind of hikes around different places. You can hike to kind of mountaintop lakes from where your boat is. So you go dinghy over and hop on a trail and hike up and swim in a lake that you know it’s really only accessible in the summertime. It’s snowed in every other. time of the year. It was a good way to kind of finish our journey. And then we, we re-entered the U.S. at Detour, Michigan. It’s on the Upper Peninsula. And crossed our way, finished our loop at Hessel, Michigan, which was where we were the prior summer. That’s as far north as we had gone. So a very emotional time as we pulled into Hessel, Michigan in the harbor there and finished that trip. A lot of feels by everybody on board. And we kind of had a dance party. We put on some music and we’re dancing our way into to drop anchor for that last time. We had a friend that had met us on shore and had brought with him the Gold burgee. Gold burgee is you fly a white flag while you’re doing this loop, identifies you as somebody that’s, that’s on this journey. It helps you identify other people so you can ask questions and have community that way. And then when you have completed it, you change out that white flag for a gold one. And so we had a dear friend standing on shore waving us in as we dropped anchor with our gold flag ready to go put it on our boat. It was a very, very special moment.

**John:** Hmm. What are the emotions like? I have no idea. Like when you say like the emotions, the feels like what?

**Seth:** Yeah, it was, it was weird on our boat because I think we talked a little bit about it before, but it only got worse throughout the end of the journey is that 2 of us were very sad to see it come to an end, they’re ready to go around again and never leave boat life. And 2 were, get me off of this thing. A year is enough. I miss my friends. I miss my house. I miss being able to drive to the grocery store if I forgot one thing and it doesn’t wreck the whole day. And so, I mean, there were tears all around, but some of us, tears of joy in completing the journey, some tears of sadness for it being over, at least this chapter of it. But I think overwhelmingly a sense of accomplishment. I think you don’t go through this type of a journey without really feeling that as a deep, deep sense of accomplishment for all the things that we had done to really make that happen. And I think it’s through some of the challenges and the adversities that we experienced on the trip that, that we grew the most and that, uh, that make finishing such an accomplishment. I think if it were easy, um, you wouldn’t have as many of those feels, you know. If it was a vacation, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t experience it in the same way as, um, it really is. It’s challenging, it’s work, uh, and so when you have that sense of accomplishment, it really It really gets you that, wow, we really did this. We really pulled this off in, in all the aspects that that means, right? The, all the pre-work for the years ahead to, to make way for this, both time-wise for our family, financially for our family, the sourcing of a boat. We spent a whole year really shopping for the boat that, man, we really pulled that off. We really bought a boat, did this thing. That, that’s an accomplishment. And then all the day-to-day, 7,000 miles on a boat is no joke. You know, we did it without ruining a propeller by hitting rocks. We did it without, you know, the perils that you could have at sea. And, and, you know, we did it with teamwork and as a family. And I think that sense of accomplishment was overwhelming, overwhelmingly what we felt as we were coming into that final stretch.

**John:** What were some of the biggest challenges in the last 1,000 miles?

**Seth:** Yeah, as the end got closer and closer, I think some of the— what each person was feeling was different day to day with the others. So the ones that were mourning that, okay, the end is coming up in 3 weeks, so now it’s 2 weeks, now it’s a week. Like, I want to linger in this place and I don’t want it to end, so I want to just immerse and be here. And then the other 2 of us saying— I’m ready. I don’t want to be here. This is not my jam. Let’s get on with it already. And everybody enjoyed the trip. Don’t misunderstand. But everybody was feeling different emotions in those moments in the final weeks. And so that caused people to struggle sometimes with what the other person was feeling because we couldn’t really relate. I mean, we can intellectually relate to, okay, you’re feeling bummed because this is coming to an end, and I’m feeling like I’m excited that it’s coming to an end. And that puts us at odds on the boat, and that affects some of our decisions day to day of, I just want to sit here and relish in what we’re experiencing today. And the other, like, let’s stop relishing and get into port so we can go have dinner and And speed this thing along.

**John:** And which camp were you in?

**Seth:** I was in the go-around again. I would still be living on the boat. My daughter would still be living on the boat. We absolutely loved it. It was terrific. And I think that’s— and we’ve stuck with that even after the trip, that that was the case. I think the other 2, my wife and my son, they’ve come around a little bit to At first, they were like, yes, it was a good trip, but never again. And/or like, I didn’t see as much value as the other 2 of you. But as the months have worn on since being home, I even asked my son today kind of in preparation for this, what would you say? You know, what were like the highlights? Or how has this changed you? And to hear his answers were kind of profound. And I think he wouldn’t have said that in those final weeks or the first couple of weeks after being home. He was still, you know, I miss my friends. It was a challenging trip for me because it was a year away from, you know, familiarity and home and friends and things. But I think he looks back on it now and has a new perspective having been home. He appreciates things here more now. You know, he recognizes that he’s grown spiritually, physically, mentally. And he, he, he kind of now looks back on some of the times on the boat that he felt bummed out and thinks, well, maybe I took for granted the awesomeness that was going on there. And so he looks back on it with a different filter, right? And some— sometimes I think in life when we’re going through something that is an adversity or something like that, um, when you look Back on it in retrospect, you see things that you don’t see when you’re going through it. And I think that’s what he’s experiencing. And and I’m excited and proud to hear him say that because I think we’re all changed by this trip. But to hear him because I think he had the hardest time of all of us to look back with a fondness now that he maybe didn’t have right after the trip was was awesome and. Powerful for me to hear.

**John:** How are you different in 2024 than you were in, say, 2022?

**Seth:** Oh, so much more experience. I think I learned so much more about myself, my family, and how we approach so many different things in terms of like big hairy goals and projects and stuff like that. Once you have bitten off this big amazing thing, it opens your eyes to what’s possible in other areas of your life. So I think I’ve built up a confidence there that I certainly didn’t have before we started this whole journey. I think it’s changed, you know, like my son, it’s changed the way I appreciate the things of home and the things that are all around us in our day-to-day lives that— and I think, you know, to some extent all travel does that. You know, if you go on a week vacation, you go experience something and you see how, you know, people just in different parts of the country or internationally live or experience life that’s different than your own. It makes you appreciate sometimes the returning to home. And so I think I appreciate home more than, than I had prior to this journey. And I think I appreciate, uh, I, I’m way, way, way more flexible now than I was before. I mean, I have been Type A engineer planner, uh, my entire life. It’s, it’s what I prided myself on, what I made my career out of, uh, for 26 years. And on this trip, it taught me that you have to be flexible. Uh, life is going to throw things at you And it can’t all be planned out, and that’s okay. And you roll with it, and it turns out okay in the end is the punchline. And so I can apply that to so many other areas of my life. And I wouldn’t have thought that that was the message that I would have come away with. I would have thought, oh, I learned that planning really pays off and that you should invest all your energy and carefully plan and execute the plan. Because that got me so far. But on this trip, that only gets you so far. And at some point, you just have to have faith and you have to have a sense of courage and a sense of flexibility to be able to change when it’s necessary. And those are things that I’m going to carry going forward for sure that we learned on this trip.

**John:** Any I say any adversities, but I remember in the last conversation you had gotten a hole in your boat. Like, were there things like that that happened in the last 1,000 miles?

**Seth:** No, as far as the boat goes, it behaved flawlessly that last stretch. And so we are very thankful for that. We did sell the boat. in the fall before moving back home. And that was always the plan. But again, there— that generated some feels, you know.

**John:** Oh yeah, I can see that.

**Seth:** A sad, sad day. But we had started working with a broker around the last time I talked to you. Our boat broker had started working with us, had the boat listed, yeah, with the idea that there’s many months left and that that’ll be plenty of time to get interested parties onto the boat to look at it while we’re still in process. We write a contract that says, you know, I’m, I’m going to deliver it in, in this condition, it’s going to be in good shape. And, uh, and then we finish our trip and then they say it’s their boat, take it over, uh, upon an inspection, just like you would inspect a home. You haul it out of the water, you look at it, make sure it’s as advertised, and then, then you buy the boat. So we had it locked up in contract, uh, before we entered Canada. So a couple of months early, uh, than when we were going to finish. And that gave us, uh, comfort in that the deal is kind of done, you know, and we have a contract on the boat. So that feels reassuring that it’s not gonna not sell at the end of this trip. Uh, and then also it gave us terror because what if we screw it up between now and the end? Uh, somebody’s already bought this thing, and if we run into something or blow an engine or something like that, let’s be very careful. everybody, you know, yeah, we, we stopped drinking red wine on the decks. We stopped, you know, we, we treated it a little more like it was someone else’s boat because it was at that point. Um, we, we went on to have a couple of hijinks with the sale. So that particular one fell through for financing reasons. Uh, we had another one that fell through for inspection and, uh, maybe, uh, just fear reasons. You know, sometimes when you get into a purchase like this, it it stirs up, oh, I don’t know if I can handle a boat this big, this complex, whatever. And by the time you realize it, there’s really only one point you can accept or reject the boat, and it’s after that inspection. So they rejected it after that inspection, which was difficult because you’ve already got a lot of emotion invested and time invested and logistics invested by that point. So, but our third buyer Went, went, went off without a hitch, like clockwork. Everything was fine. But we were pushing up against fall in the Great Lakes, which is a time when you want to get prepared to haul your boat out of the water, get it in heated storage and things like that. So there was some nervousness that, well, if this one falls through, then, then we’re in some trouble. But really, the plan was always to sell the boat when we were done, and that ended up working out just fine, just with a couple of missteps in between.

**John:** Are there any things that you wish that you had done differently or that you would do differently if you were to do it again?

**Seth:** I don’t think so. I think you can only apply that experience to the next time you do it. You can’t really know it. I can’t really tell somebody else, this is what I would do differently, and have them actually do it differently to any more degree of success than I did. Just by the same token of, I listened to everybody else’s advice and we did the best we could. I think everybody’s trip is going to be different. Things we, my wife and I, have talked about, well, like our kids are coming up on college ages, they’re going to be out from under our roof before too long. And, you know, one of the questions that we get frequently is, well, what’s next for your family? You know, is it more boating or would you ever do the boat trip again? And we’ve wrestled with that because, you know, we’re putting 2 people on the boat. One that said, you know, it was a great trip and I never want to leave, and, uh, her that says, yeah, okay, it was a good trip, but I don’t know that I want to get back on that boat like my friends. And so what do you apply to that situation, uh, in terms of this experience? What would we do differently? Um, we wouldn’t have so much of a breakneck pace. I think, um, this trip To complete the loop in a year, you have to really keep moving. Like every other day you need to move the boat. And some days you don’t really feel like moving the boat. You feel like this place is beautiful and amazing and chill, and I just want to stay here. I might want to stay here forever. It’s, it’s so incredible. Or at least for a week or two until I get bored of this place and let’s move to the next one. So I think we would slow down the pace. We had a real desire to like see it all. And try to see it all, do it all. And I suffer from FOMO, fear of missing out, all the time. And so if I skip some cool port, my fear is that I’ll never get back to that port ever in my life. And so if I skip it, you know, tomorrow we don’t make that stop at the biggest ball of twine, then, then I will forever miss out. And inevitably I will hear at the pub from the other boat that said, oh, you should have stopped there. It was the best place ever. And so we stopped at many more places. And so I think my advice for anyone else would be stop at half the number of places and invest time. And so, so it slows the trip down. You’re going more miles in a day. But give up that FOMO and just be present where, where you are and enjoy where you are. So I think if we do it again, we’ll do it with that in mind. I think we’ll skip every other town. We don’t need to see it all again. We don’t need to see all the ones we missed even. There’s enough of the world out there. Just go at a pace that is more slow and conducive to our schedule. I think that’s the big one. And then also that enables you to have time when you’re not moving so quickly to invest more in friendships, to be more flexible, to go with— like, if you meet some cool people and they’re on your neighboring boat, uh, go, go invest time with them. Don’t say, well, good to meet you, but we’re moving on tomorrow. Say, hey, you guys are cool. Do you, you know, you want to go grab a beer tomorrow, or you hit this museum, or see the sights, or share a hike, or do those kinds of things? And I think that would have helped somewhat with some homesickness as well that a lot of us experienced on the trip. And, and also moving at a slower pace allows you more time to invite friends to be on the boat with you, or to get off the boat, go home, make some visits, those kinds of things. I think that would have improved the quality of life on, on the entirety of the trip, really for everybody, because everybody gets homesick. Everybody, you know, has that fatigue of travel, and sometimes taking a break, um, with the pace we went was more difficult. And I think if you slow it down, it affords you that. And I think It makes it a richer experience when you’re on the boat than if you hadn’t gone and visited and seen people.

**John:** I mean, I’m thinking of road trips that we’ve done where we camped or whatever and moving every day or two. That’s— I don’t know. It sounds— it’s exhausting car camping, but I can’t— I don’t know what’s— yeah. I don’t know that you completely answered the question. What are the next adventures or what’s What’s next?

**Seth:** Ah, it’s because I don’t know, John. We’ve got, we’ve got dreams, um, we just don’t know where they fit in kind of the new, uh, pace of life for us. Uh, I’m, I’m a boat guy and I love boats. We all do. Uh, after this trip, that was never a question I don’t think any of us had, was, uh, I loved everything about the trip but the boat. That was not the case. Everybody enjoyed the And we’re used to having a cabin cruiser on the water here in Portland to be able to go down and weekend on and explore and do those kinds of things. So we are missing that less so in the winter when it’s raining and drizzly and cold. But I think come summertime, we’re really, really going to miss that kind of thing, like waking up on the water, having a cup of coffee, looking out. Is it’s it’s just part of our DNA now, and so to not have that is going to be a challenge. So I see. an opportunity there for a boat in this locale to spend time on here. But beyond that, we are no longer satisfied with, you know, go a couple miles up the river, a couple miles down the river, and, and that’s it. Having done this huge grand trip, we, we know what the world holds out there. And so if we’re going to invest in another boat, I think we’re looking for one that is capable of exploring, and I think we have so much great exploring to do here in the Northwest. I think that’s really the answer is the next boat adventure to me is a boat that’s here that we can do just that weekend up and down the river, but then is capable of, let’s go all the way down the Columbia River to Astoria. Let’s cross the bar into the Pacific Ocean. That’s new to us. Uh, and then take a right turn and head up to Seattle. Let’s do Puget Sound. Let’s do San Juan Islands. Maybe that’s the summer and then that’s it. Um, maybe it’s more than a summer, or it’s the next summer and it’s the Inside Passage to Ketchikan, Alaska. Uh, for a while, uh, you know, as soon as I got home, I went out to the bookstore and I bought this map of the Inside Passage from Seattle to Ketchikan, and I posted it on the wall here in my office, and, uh, I would look at it and I’d plan and I’d think just like, you know, we just completed this trip. And I think after some number of months, it kind of started bogging me down and it was— and concerning my wife. She’s like, we just got off the boat. What are you doing? Crazy. So the map is still here, but I put it inside my closet.

**John:** Oh, I love it.

**Seth:** Open it and go look at it. But yeah, so no firm plans, but kind of a loose idea for an adventure there. And then longer term, I think I’m ready to go around the loop again. I think my wife is ready to go around the loop again. I think the trip has changed the kids so that we’re not so tied to the bricks and mortar of this being home. You know, we called a boat home for 15 months on this trip, and I think Everybody is okay with whatever home looks like in the future. That could be something that floats. It could be something way smaller than a house here. It could be something in the north in the summer and south in the winter. I think there’s a lot more openness to that because of what we experienced this year. And so our idea of home has has a little bit changed. Again, no firm plans or anything like that, but I think. And going forward,

**John:** is Portland Boat Tours opening again in the spring or summer?

**Seth:** I will certainly be out there on that boat, Rosie, and going up and down. It may be friends and family because I kind of feel like I’ve got a backlog of connections to make and things like that. So I don’t know if we operate as a business this summer, or it’s just a fun catch-up, let’s do that. So I won’t commit either way on that, but I will definitely be out there because I miss that little stretch of river and, and getting in my wooden boats and going. So for sure.

**John:** Well, anything else in closing about the trip, challenges to people listening, Anything else?

**Seth:** Yeah, I— we talked a little bit about it last time, about, uh, in terms of encouragement for folks is to, um, just figure out what your thing is, you know, whether it’s travel or it’s, uh, starting a business or it’s, um, just, just really anything you could name, you know. What is your big dream that you want to do And what can you do in any kind of small way to just start moving towards it now? This type of a grand adventure doesn’t happen overnight. This is years of dreaming and thinking and asking, well, you know, wouldn’t it be crazy if— it’s one of my favorite questions my wife and I ask ourselves on an annual planning retreat. That’s what this trip came out of. It is. wouldn’t it be crazy if— and we take a blank piece of paper and we write stuff down, and this trip was on there. Wouldn’t it be crazy if we could move on a boat, do this trip for a year? And it happened. So I guess my challenge to folks is, you know, get out a piece of paper and write, wouldn’t it be crazy if— and jot some things down. And then the next step is, well, what small step could I take towards one of those things that I’m interested in or passionate about? Because otherwise you’ll wake up in another year and be in the same place doing the same thing, you know. And, and I, I’d really encourage people to, to move towards whatever it is that’s drawing you, because this trip, although, you know, in, in a lot of ways different than maybe what we exactly thought, has been rewarding in so, so many ways. I can’t imagine not doing it because you never started or you never took the baby steps that it took to to make it happen. So that’s my, my challenge and encouragement to folks.

**John:** What was the— just stay close to— what was the first small step you took after you wrote down, it would be crazy if we did this thing for a year? Like, what was the first 4 or 5 little steps you took?

**Seth:** Yeah, there were big concerns. Like, that was the next thing is, okay, well, what are all the things? Let’s get out on paper. What are you worried about? What am I worried Like, I’m worried about how do you afford this? Like, can I quit my job? Like, do you work from a boat? How do you do that? It was, yeah, like you had asked earlier, are you capable of this trip? Like, do I have enough boating knowledge? Can I even pull that off? And like, insurance is always like just in our minds. Like, okay, what about health insurance? I have a job that has health insurance. What do you do? You live on a boat. All of those kinds of questions. So just writing those down. I find that in life, naming those challenges, putting them on a piece of paper already provides some relief, right?

**John:** 100%.

**Seth:** And if you come up with a new challenge, put it on a piece of paper. That deflates that challenge. It takes its power over you away. You can’t overthink it. It’s on a piece of paper. And if anything else comes up, just add it to the paper. That’s it. You’ll get to it. And then we prioritize that. We kind of doled out those things like, okay, I’m going to go off and figure out how do we afford You know, what does the trip cost? How much do we have to save? You know, what do we have to save? You know, what does that look like? And you just start picking those things off like one little piece of information at a time, at a time. And then we started scratching those challenges off the list until, hey, you know what? There’s no reason we shouldn’t do this because we’ve answered all of our questions and concerns about it. Right now, we’re still, you know, we still may worry about some of those things, but that’s the tiny step that I think you can take is name those challenges and just start picking away at them, even if it’s just a phone call here or a spreadsheet there. You know, how do I get between where I am and start making those little steps?

**John:** So, what was the amount of time? I keep having questions. What was the amount of time between when you put the idea on that piece of paper And then the time that you actually left to get on the boat?

**Seth:** I think it was 3 years. I think it was 3 years. And the second year, so 1 year after putting it on the paper and after kind of thinking about all those things, we had another retreat and we said, wouldn’t it be crazy if Because we were planning this, uh, to be going on this year, not last year. And we wrote on that paper, wouldn’t it be crazy if we could do this a year earlier? Because it kind of sucks to be gone for your senior year of high school. Oh, totally. That’s not, not a lot of fun. So we’re putting a challenge in front of our daughter if we do that. Wouldn’t it be crazy if we could actually pull off this plan a year earlier? and do this so that she comes back and then has her senior year? Could we do that? And we figured out a way to do it. I mean, that’s the power and the magic of that process and that list and the knowledge of what it takes to do a thing is that you can answer that question. And we did it. So yeah.

**John:** So beautiful.

**Seth:** Yeah. And I am excited for what’s next. I really am. I’m excited to have that blank piece of paper again and dream again.

**John:** When’s the next retreat?

**Seth:** Yeah, we’re overdue. We’re overdue. But that’s how things happen. Wouldn’t it be crazy if we could go to Alaska? and do that or own a cottage on Lake Michigan and a boat in Florida and go to Bahamas again and all those things. Right.

**John:** I guess

**Seth:** I’m making up my own list. I should involve my family. But yeah.

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