My Career Journey: Struggle, Success, And Setbacks

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | Hey guys, today I wanna talk to you about something

00:00:09.480 | that's kind of near and dear to my heart

00:00:11.520 | and that's the topic of struggle and failure.

00:00:15.560 | My struggle ranged from self-doubt, self-confidence issues.

00:00:20.560 | There was issues with the market,

00:00:24.860 | job market was just terrible.

00:00:26.280 | It was just kind of mirroring

00:00:27.920 | what we're experiencing now in 2023.

00:00:30.440 | I've had managers that were very demeaning

00:00:33.800 | and very combative and all these things broke me down.

00:00:38.240 | And I wanna talk about like,

00:00:39.680 | what was I thinking or dealing with at the time?

00:00:43.260 | And then on a flip side, if I had mentorship,

00:00:47.880 | what advice would have been helpful at the time?

00:00:51.280 | I wanna be just transparent with you today.

00:00:53.120 | I wanna walk you through everything I'm experiencing

00:00:55.240 | and hopefully some of this will be helpful for you.

00:00:57.960 | I got a job at a company called Design Reactor

00:01:01.720 | and I was a project manager.

00:01:03.120 | This is an example where I stepped into something

00:01:04.840 | that I had no idea, I had no experience

00:01:07.840 | around ad agencies or creative agencies,

00:01:10.240 | digital marketing, I knew none of that.

00:01:12.840 | Then I started realizing, oh, you know,

00:01:14.400 | like I had good communication skills,

00:01:17.040 | which I didn't know how to put on resumes in the past,

00:01:19.020 | but now it's actually turning into relationship building

00:01:21.740 | and I'm starting to build good rapport with clients

00:01:24.640 | and started to find a sweet spot.

00:01:26.400 | You know, this, hey, this digital marketing thing,

00:01:28.240 | web marketing, hey, it's pretty, pretty cool.

00:01:30.540 | And then I decided to take a swing and bet on myself

00:01:35.400 | and I transitioned to another agency.

00:01:38.440 | That's where I really started to experience the struggle.

00:01:42.480 | Have you ever stepped into a situation before

00:01:44.240 | where you always feel like the outsider?

00:01:48.200 | Like you're not a part of the OG crew.

00:01:51.880 | And so people don't intend to treat you differently,

00:01:55.400 | but especially from the leadership team,

00:01:57.440 | I always felt like I was never fully welcomed in.

00:02:01.300 | I always struggled with wanting to belong

00:02:05.480 | and trying to earn my place and not,

00:02:09.300 | unable to break into some of the groups

00:02:11.920 | made it kind of difficult.

00:02:13.600 | And the nature of my job at the time

00:02:15.320 | was it was account management,

00:02:16.880 | meaning I was both creating new business

00:02:21.480 | as well as project managing my own work.

00:02:24.320 | And the cycle that started becoming difficult

00:02:27.360 | was the more successful I was at bringing more business,

00:02:31.880 | the more work I added to my own plate

00:02:33.800 | 'cause I didn't manage that.

00:02:35.120 | You know, if I had a mentor at the time,

00:02:37.520 | they probably would advise me to raise my hand

00:02:40.500 | and articulate things more clearly

00:02:43.160 | around how to ask for resources

00:02:45.400 | like getting my own project manager, for example.

00:02:47.880 | But I didn't have that guidance.

00:02:48.880 | So I just struggled with internally

00:02:50.680 | and I worked crazy hours.

00:02:53.000 | I think I was averaging like 60 hour weeks

00:02:54.960 | and then it started impacting my work.

00:02:56.640 | The general manager came back

00:02:58.520 | and I started feeling from that moment on

00:03:01.000 | that I was undermined at every corner.

00:03:03.600 | Now, some of that I will agree and admit

00:03:05.760 | that it was probably just between my ears.

00:03:09.120 | You know, but again, I didn't have a mentor

00:03:11.240 | to help me understand that I'm not necessarily

00:03:15.840 | just a victim of my situation,

00:03:17.760 | but some of it is self-created.

00:03:19.200 | However, the mentor could have also helped me understand

00:03:22.480 | which parts I was legitimately a victim

00:03:26.240 | and I didn't know how to deal with that.

00:03:28.280 | So I feel like my manager at the time was sabotaging me.

00:03:33.560 | And then my manager would pull me aside often

00:03:37.560 | with comments that were unfair in nature.

00:03:42.440 | It's not like your tough love kind of a thing.

00:03:44.720 | It was really the language and vocabulary she used

00:03:48.760 | was demeaning.

00:03:50.520 | It felt very unfair.

00:03:54.400 | And she used words that made me question

00:03:59.400 | why I was even employed.

00:04:01.280 | And it got to the point where I was listening

00:04:04.960 | to self-help books, tapes at that time,

00:04:09.960 | on the way to work.

00:04:12.080 | And I would always have the anxiety that built up

00:04:15.640 | 'cause like anxiety stepping into the office

00:04:17.840 | was it just triggered whenever I saw this individual.

00:04:21.160 | And I had to listen to these self-help tapes

00:04:23.480 | for about 15 minutes in the car

00:04:24.840 | before I walked out the office.

00:04:26.720 | I went in, did my 10, 12 hour day,

00:04:30.000 | came back broken.

00:04:33.320 | And I sat in the parking lot every day in the car,

00:04:37.720 | listening to the self-help tapes again before I went home

00:04:40.960 | because I didn't want to take that

00:04:43.400 | and unfairly project frustrations onto my then girlfriend.

00:04:48.760 | And it was just a really dark time.

00:04:50.480 | I really, really struggled.

00:04:51.840 | And she ended up letting me go.

00:04:55.600 | The sin of mine, I was at that point,

00:04:57.560 | was I thought I was a good project manager.

00:05:00.400 | I'm not.

00:05:01.640 | I thought I was good at building relationships.

00:05:04.080 | I can't.

00:05:05.360 | I thought I knew web marketing.

00:05:08.280 | I don't.

00:05:09.520 | I thought I could manage a cross-functional team

00:05:13.560 | of designers and developers.

00:05:16.000 | No, you can't.

00:05:17.840 | And so I, but that was like my living.

00:05:22.840 | Like digital marketing was a thing I chose to do.

00:05:25.520 | And I didn't know how to pivot.

00:05:26.600 | I didn't know if I should pivot.

00:05:28.200 | And so I went through a period of unemployment.

00:05:31.640 | I had the stress of needing to pay a mortgage.

00:05:34.640 | So I was trying to rent out my rooms,

00:05:36.800 | claiming unemployment and just doing all these odds and ends

00:05:40.200 | to just try to make it meet.

00:05:41.520 | And as a matter of fact, to this day,

00:05:43.080 | I can't eat oatmeal anymore

00:05:47.280 | because that's what I ate straight

00:05:49.000 | for like probably like five or six months.

00:05:50.600 | I just ate oatmeal with either salt or sugar

00:05:55.600 | because adding toppings costs money.

00:05:59.320 | And I didn't want to buy dried fruits

00:06:01.080 | 'cause that could be $4.

00:06:03.280 | And that's $4 I might need for something else.

00:06:06.360 | And so I was living as bare minimum as I could,

00:06:09.880 | just barely scraping by.

00:06:11.240 | I then took a lot of contract work

00:06:13.280 | in the digital marketing space.

00:06:14.480 | And then I landed a contractor role at Logitech.

00:06:17.640 | And it was there that I started kind of rediscovering

00:06:20.600 | my love for digital again.

00:06:21.800 | But then I was converted to full-time.

00:06:23.600 | And it was great.

00:06:24.440 | And I was like, I love Logitech.

00:06:26.240 | I love the product.

00:06:27.080 | And this was fantastic.

00:06:29.760 | And that's where the nature of the relationship

00:06:32.160 | started to kind of rub a little strange.

00:06:35.240 | My manager brought on another manager to manage me.

00:06:38.520 | I thought my previous manager

00:06:40.160 | was the most difficult I've ever had.

00:06:42.720 | This one, she was probably the worst up to that point.

00:06:47.320 | If I had a mentor, those discussions would have been around

00:06:52.320 | how do you understand my manager

00:06:54.960 | and how to manage my manager, all that kind of stuff.

00:06:58.120 | But I didn't have any of that.

00:07:00.640 | And so all I could deal with was what was in front of me.

00:07:03.440 | And the leadership style of this manager,

00:07:08.560 | and I was her only direct report.

00:07:10.760 | And I'm not sure if this is her first time

00:07:12.240 | managing or whatnot,

00:07:13.240 | but it was a very confrontational nature.

00:07:15.720 | And in an effort to maybe exert or exercise her authority,

00:07:20.720 | like my previous manager,

00:07:24.600 | she chose to use her vocabulary to do that.

00:07:29.200 | And there were times where we would have our one-on-one

00:07:34.440 | in the cafe and there's plenty of people around

00:07:38.600 | and she would raise her voice

00:07:40.200 | and yell at me and berate me in front of people.

00:07:43.360 | She would call me an idiot.

00:07:44.440 | She would say like, what the F are you doing?

00:07:46.440 | Like, this is unacceptable.

00:07:48.120 | And quite frankly,

00:07:48.960 | and some of the things that she's bringing up

00:07:51.720 | like has nothing to do with me.

00:07:54.000 | And so I'm processing all of these things.

00:07:56.200 | And I'm like, I'm trying to help her understand that,

00:07:58.720 | hey, like what you're talking about isn't necessarily me

00:08:00.840 | or there are maybe some dependencies

00:08:02.840 | that cause things to maybe not line up

00:08:05.400 | that maybe you as a manager can help me off

00:08:07.400 | kind of figure out.

00:08:08.240 | But the response was always me being the failure.

00:08:13.240 | So again, if I had a mentor at the time

00:08:17.160 | helping my manager understand how to fix some things

00:08:23.560 | to set her up to manage the issues,

00:08:27.400 | well, probably would have been good,

00:08:28.800 | but I didn't have any of that.

00:08:30.280 | That was a brutal year where like the previous one,

00:08:34.520 | I just started questioning everything.

00:08:36.760 | And I broke down several times,

00:08:40.800 | those self-help tapes came back out.

00:08:42.780 | But that's when I decided to make a stand.

00:08:47.480 | I was like, you know what?

00:08:50.240 | I know I'm doing good work.

00:08:53.180 | Regardless of what my manager is saying to her manager,

00:08:59.480 | I know I'm delivering.

00:09:01.040 | And as a project manager, I'm building good schedules.

00:09:04.320 | I'm holding people to it.

00:09:05.980 | The political stuff I have no influence over,

00:09:09.760 | but I was doing a kick-ass job.

00:09:13.160 | As a matter of fact, the people around me

00:09:15.400 | knew I was doing good work.

00:09:17.600 | So I made a decision at that point.

00:09:19.000 | I was like, you know what?

00:09:19.880 | Okay, I can't control how my manager is gonna manage me.

00:09:25.880 | What I can control is my work.

00:09:30.760 | So I made a decision to just work hard.

00:09:34.160 | And I looked at all my work,

00:09:36.760 | figure out like, hey, how can I do something better?

00:09:38.440 | How can I do it more efficiently?

00:09:40.220 | And I decided to just let my work speak for itself.

00:09:43.480 | There's gonna be an intersection

00:09:45.000 | where someone's gonna question the validity

00:09:47.280 | of everything that I do.

00:09:49.340 | And I want my proof to be there.

00:09:51.360 | So I did that.

00:09:53.360 | And eventually that won out.

00:09:57.520 | I don't know the politics or decisions

00:09:59.280 | around her departing the company,

00:10:01.980 | but I remained.

00:10:06.980 | Now this individual,

00:10:07.820 | now she has since reached out and apologized.

00:10:09.520 | So I'm very appreciative of that.

00:10:12.200 | And I think there's a lesson there around self-awareness.

00:10:16.200 | If you know that you've done something in the past

00:10:19.520 | to someone that may not have been the right thing,

00:10:22.980 | and you're wondering if you should go back

00:10:26.120 | and talk to them, you probably should.

00:10:30.680 | Because there is a door in their heart

00:10:33.200 | that they want to close and resolve.

00:10:36.120 | And you may be the only one who has the key

00:10:38.880 | to open that door or help them close it and lock it.

00:10:42.300 | She and I, we're not friends.

00:10:44.340 | I don't talk to her regularly,

00:10:45.560 | but when I think about her, I don't have anxiety.

00:10:50.040 | When I think about the two managers prior,

00:10:53.760 | when I think about her, I still have anxiety.

00:10:55.840 | And so that is always going to be there,

00:10:59.440 | regardless of how many therapists I talk to,

00:11:01.840 | until one day I somehow maybe reach out to her

00:11:04.560 | and talk about it.

00:11:05.880 | But from there on, the idea of taking control

00:11:12.120 | of what I have started laying the groundwork to success.

00:11:17.120 | There was interest to bring me over

00:11:19.320 | to the B2B side of the business.

00:11:21.000 | And so I did that, and that's when I started to grow.

00:11:24.880 | I learned that, hey, I can own something

00:11:28.080 | from strategy to execution and own it soup to nuts

00:11:33.080 | and be my own GM of a web entity.

00:11:37.680 | And that was the first time where I discovered,

00:11:41.240 | hey, I can do this thing, like I have value.

00:11:45.680 | And it was a lean team, and it was a fun,

00:11:49.840 | fun time in my career at Logitech.

00:11:51.920 | And it was great, we built great relationships.

00:11:54.960 | I think that was the jumping off point

00:11:57.880 | where my career went from just absolute struggle

00:12:02.480 | and feeling like I'm a failure to myself constantly

00:12:06.200 | and shifting the dialogue to, hey, I've got value.

00:12:10.820 | From there, I went on to NetApp, to LinkedIn,

00:12:14.100 | and LinkedIn became the most transformative experience

00:12:18.980 | in my career.

00:12:20.580 | People talk about empathy.

00:12:22.020 | Up to that point, empathy, compassion,

00:12:24.260 | it felt like a loosey-goosey topic, you know?

00:12:27.180 | Like, it's like, how do you measure that?

00:12:30.500 | Well, LinkedIn operationalized that.

00:12:33.700 | And they took something like compassion,

00:12:37.580 | and they preached it 'til the sun went down.

00:12:40.580 | And from an ESG point of view where,

00:12:44.020 | not even just ESG, but like internal poll surveys

00:12:46.940 | where they looked at employee satisfaction

00:12:50.960 | and grading leadership, whatever,

00:12:53.380 | it was all very transparent.

00:12:54.700 | And compassion and relationship building

00:12:57.380 | was part of those scores.

00:12:59.300 | And it was the first time I saw a organization

00:13:02.360 | from the top all the way down.

00:13:04.300 | So it was Jeff Weiner at the time,

00:13:06.020 | preaching compassion and empathy constantly.

00:13:09.420 | Hold leadership accountable to that.

00:13:12.660 | That was very cool.

00:13:14.600 | Now, I will say, though,

00:13:16.900 | that my first year on the job was a struggle again,

00:13:20.460 | 'cause it was a different kind of struggle.

00:13:23.020 | Imposter syndrome became the thing for me that first year.

00:13:27.660 | In my interview, the senior leadership

00:13:30.340 | would ask me questions that were very much in the weeds,

00:13:34.580 | meaning they understood it fundamentally.

00:13:36.920 | And I was like, wow.

00:13:39.140 | Like, I kind of feel like everyone can kind of do my job.

00:13:43.140 | (laughs)

00:13:44.260 | And then, I know, I got selected,

00:13:46.780 | and I was like so happy.

00:13:50.380 | And that first year, I was like surrounded by people

00:13:55.380 | that I was just amazed at how intelligent they were.

00:13:57.500 | It's like, this is the cream of the cream of the crop.

00:14:01.740 | And then I started feeling, it's like,

00:14:03.540 | oh man, do I belong here?

00:14:04.960 | And then, imposter syndrome crept in,

00:14:09.300 | because my manager at the time,

00:14:10.900 | who, his name was Blake.

00:14:13.820 | I love Blake, he's fantastic.

00:14:16.140 | He provided me one piece of really hard feedback

00:14:20.220 | that I really struggled with.

00:14:21.940 | And it was, not to use his words,

00:14:24.620 | but the idea was, we hired you

00:14:29.080 | because you are supposed to be good at everything.

00:14:34.100 | Strategy, analytics, UX, design,

00:14:39.100 | knowing development.

00:14:41.260 | You're supposed to lead us from end to end.

00:14:43.160 | However, my ability to provide good analytics,

00:14:47.860 | I was falling far short.

00:14:49.620 | If I had a mentor, which I didn't yet at the point,

00:14:53.900 | they would have helped me realize

00:14:55.220 | that that was absolutely true.

00:14:57.660 | Like, up to that point in my career,

00:14:59.540 | I had always been the recipient of analytics.

00:15:02.300 | So someone who'd pull the data.

00:15:03.660 | Now, understanding the data and mining it for insights

00:15:07.020 | was something that I had experience with,

00:15:08.500 | but pulling my own data?

00:15:10.860 | I had never had to do that.

00:15:12.780 | But now I have to go through BA tools,

00:15:15.100 | I had to go through Google Analytics,

00:15:16.580 | I had to go through Tableau, I had to go through SFDC.

00:15:19.500 | I've never done any of those before.

00:15:21.580 | And my fear is always, if I pull the data wrong,

00:15:26.580 | or I'm looking at it the wrong way,

00:15:29.640 | then all the conclusions I get out of that

00:15:32.140 | will be wrong.

00:15:33.700 | If I pull the information in a way that's different

00:15:36.460 | than how anyone else is pulling the data,

00:15:39.000 | and they're all pulling it the same way, let's say,

00:15:41.860 | they're gonna say my data is biased.

00:15:43.660 | And there were a lot of presentations where I did

00:15:47.140 | where I would show so much data,

00:15:49.820 | and maybe I would share an insight or takeaway on,

00:15:52.460 | let's say, slide two.

00:15:53.700 | And I would go all the way to slide 10,

00:15:55.340 | and then someone would be like,

00:15:56.780 | "Hey, you said something seven slides ago,

00:16:01.300 | "or however many."

00:16:02.980 | And these conclusions kind of conflict with each other,

00:16:05.440 | don't they?

00:16:06.500 | And I'd be like, "How did you see that?"

00:16:08.540 | 'Cause those weren't even maybe,

00:16:10.580 | maybe some of them were like tertiary points,

00:16:12.420 | and they're just seeing these stuff.

00:16:13.260 | So again, I'm like, "Oh my God,

00:16:16.520 | "I don't think I should be here anymore.

00:16:18.280 | "I don't feel qualified."

00:16:19.340 | And that imposter syndrome started creeping

00:16:23.900 | into all the areas of my work.

00:16:26.180 | And so it started with analytics,

00:16:28.280 | then it went to web strategy,

00:16:30.780 | it went to everything.

00:16:31.620 | Now I feel like, "Oh my gosh."

00:16:33.340 | I started having anxiety attacks.

00:16:34.540 | It's like, "I don't know if I even deserve to be here."

00:16:37.700 | And I was at my lowest point,

00:16:40.740 | I would say, emotionally at LinkedIn,

00:16:43.680 | when I had a change of managers.

00:16:45.620 | And this is when the game changed for me.

00:16:49.160 | Because now he was an individual

00:16:54.460 | who was a lot more empathetic and understanding.

00:16:57.900 | He was actually experiencing some of this

00:17:00.300 | for the first time.

00:17:01.140 | He came from product marketing,

00:17:04.820 | and now he is doing digital and growth marketing.

00:17:09.260 | Now it's all new to him.

00:17:10.820 | And so we were kind of figuring this out,

00:17:15.060 | and his name, by the way, is RJ Fox.

00:17:16.820 | And RJ is probably one of the best managers

00:17:20.100 | I've ever had in my entire career.

00:17:22.180 | And I owe a lot of things to him.

00:17:24.180 | Because his approach was,

00:17:26.300 | "We're all figuring this thing out together."

00:17:28.540 | And at that point, his team was really small.

00:17:30.660 | It was just me and two others in the band, Jen.

00:17:35.340 | And he's like, "Look, help me get smart.

00:17:37.940 | "Help me figure this thing out."

00:17:39.100 | And it allowed me to reopen my box of expertise

00:17:42.820 | and say, "Hey, look, here's how I'm looking at things."

00:17:45.420 | And I took a leap of faith there.

00:17:47.500 | And this is kind of a lesson to learn

00:17:49.100 | for all of you guys around being transparent

00:17:50.900 | with your manager.

00:17:51.800 | I said, "Hey, look, here's what I believe

00:17:56.580 | "the strategy should be for the website.

00:17:58.700 | "Here is what I am doing really well."

00:18:02.900 | And to be transparent, here are things I'm struggling with.

00:18:06.020 | And I had a really open dialogue,

00:18:08.260 | and it kind of helped me understand,

00:18:10.740 | I'm struggling with it, but here's my approach.

00:18:13.460 | 'Cause again, when you're managing your manager,

00:18:15.900 | one of the most important things for them to understand

00:18:18.060 | is how you arrive at a conclusion,

00:18:20.540 | or your thought process, or how you work things out.

00:18:23.940 | 'Cause that is shapeable.

00:18:26.220 | It's more about the process and not the outcome.

00:18:29.220 | And so I talked to him and said,

00:18:30.780 | "Hey, look, I'm really struggling

00:18:33.260 | "with building data together in a way that makes sense.

00:18:36.020 | "And my dashboards have fallen flat with Blake,

00:18:39.820 | "and I'm trying to figure out how do I do this."

00:18:42.580 | And then I asked the one question

00:18:44.660 | that changed the game for me,

00:18:47.660 | which is, "RJ, what is it that you're looking for?"

00:18:54.080 | And it's an important question 'cause it changes the lens

00:18:57.920 | where now I'm trying to understand

00:18:59.960 | what my manager is trying to solve for,

00:19:03.060 | and then I'll do my work in a way that can build into that.

00:19:07.320 | I ask a lot of questions on like,

00:19:08.580 | "Hey, what's important to you?"

00:19:10.820 | He'll say something like, "Well, what does that mean?"

00:19:13.280 | He'll answer that, "Okay, well, then what does that mean?"

00:19:16.680 | He'll explain that.

00:19:17.720 | So, "Okay, cool, if we did that,

00:19:18.720 | "then what does success then look like?"

00:19:21.200 | And we'll talk about that.

00:19:22.200 | And then say, "Okay, cool, then here are the top 10 things

00:19:25.400 | "I'm working on that I believe support that.

00:19:27.700 | "Do you agree that the priorities

00:19:29.400 | "are aligned to achieve that?

00:19:30.620 | "And here's my own personal assessment."

00:19:33.240 | And we'll kind of work through that.

00:19:35.000 | At the end, I walk away with a plan

00:19:38.160 | that I know supports his strategy and his objective.

00:19:41.840 | It was around that time

00:19:42.820 | that I started having RJ as my mentor.

00:19:45.080 | And I remember early on,

00:19:47.160 | he gave me the first great piece of advice

00:19:50.480 | when he knew I was wrestling with imposter syndrome.

00:19:53.560 | "You were hired because we saw value

00:19:58.560 | "in what's between your ears.

00:20:00.000 | "We hired you because you knew how to do your job

00:20:04.800 | "and we can't.

00:20:05.900 | "The only person who's telling you

00:20:08.380 | "that you can't do your job is you."

00:20:11.280 | Oh, that was so impactful.

00:20:18.080 | 'Cause it changed my perception of everything.

00:20:21.880 | And if the problem is coming from me,

00:20:24.780 | I can control that.

00:20:26.320 | I can fix that, you know?

00:20:29.000 | And if I can separate my emotions

00:20:31.020 | from objectively what is going on,

00:20:34.580 | I can impact that and improve my emotions.

00:20:37.660 | And so that feedback changed everything.

00:20:41.480 | Now, I will say imposter syndrome

00:20:44.120 | is something that always exists.

00:20:47.620 | Doesn't matter if it's in your personal life or at work,

00:20:50.720 | there's always gonna be something

00:20:52.160 | that you feel like you see someone else doing

00:20:54.440 | that you feel like, oh man,

00:20:55.800 | they're doing so much better,

00:20:58.600 | or maybe I should do differently.

00:21:00.480 | But coming back and reminding yourself

00:21:03.040 | that, hey, you have value.

00:21:05.880 | It's important.

00:21:08.280 | If I were to go back in my career,

00:21:09.800 | what I would have told myself was,

00:21:11.960 | "Hey, don't worry that you don't have the experience

00:21:16.800 | "right now to qualify for this job.

00:21:19.100 | "Dig deep, don't be afraid to take any job you can.

00:21:25.820 | "Take those jobs and know what you wanna learn from it

00:21:31.760 | "so no job is ever beneath you."

00:21:33.720 | Doesn't matter if you're a content entry, barista,

00:21:38.280 | lead strategist, VP, doesn't matter.

00:21:41.840 | Go into that job knowing what you wanna get out of it.

00:21:45.400 | And that experience will always be valuable.

00:21:49.040 | Your experience that you need for these jobs,

00:21:52.160 | it will catch up to you.

00:21:53.400 | And it'll catch up to you at the right point

00:21:57.200 | where you're able to package it in a way

00:22:00.280 | to describe the context of why you're relevant

00:22:04.200 | for a job position, and that'll separate you.

00:22:07.520 | These days when I do interviews,

00:22:09.980 | my conversation looks a lot different now.

00:22:14.120 | I used to go in and say, "Hey, look,

00:22:15.880 | "here's your checklist of things that you're looking for.

00:22:18.320 | "Here's my checklist of things that I can do.

00:22:20.680 | "Let me tell you about how they kinda get together."

00:22:22.960 | It's like, no.

00:22:24.160 | My conversations now look something like this.

00:22:28.200 | We can absolutely talk about how the dots connect,

00:22:31.380 | and we probably should, and I'll come equipped

00:22:33.680 | with examples of things I've had to overcome,

00:22:37.360 | whether it's a success or a failure.

00:22:38.960 | Talking about failures is totally fine.

00:22:41.800 | But let me tell you a little more about how I'm wired

00:22:44.760 | and how I process these things

00:22:46.480 | as I'm going through success or failures,

00:22:49.920 | how I'm thinking about the journey and how I'm solving it.

00:22:55.920 | Let me tell you about that.

00:22:57.640 | And let me tell you about why things like compassion

00:23:00.520 | are so important to me and how that influences

00:23:03.680 | how I relate to my coworkers,

00:23:06.560 | to my direct reports, to my peers.

00:23:10.000 | If that's something that you want in your organization,

00:23:12.580 | let's go.

00:23:13.420 | If it's not, then you might have given me some insight

00:23:17.480 | about a company that I don't want to work for.

00:23:19.440 | 'Cause if transparency, honesty, being genuine,

00:23:24.440 | and having compassion and empathy,

00:23:27.960 | if you're not able to show me that the company

00:23:30.400 | actually values those things based on what I'm sharing,

00:23:33.480 | maybe that's not the right company for me.

00:23:36.160 | And now the interview becomes truly two-way

00:23:38.660 | where you're interviewing them

00:23:40.680 | as much as they're interviewing you.

00:23:42.920 | So it just kind of leads me to where I am today.

00:23:45.280 | After all these years,

00:23:48.080 | I no longer kind of question what I bring to the table.

00:23:51.720 | If someone gives me a critique,

00:23:54.560 | there's always a nugget of truth behind a critique,

00:23:57.720 | even if the package is terrible.

00:24:00.080 | And so I'm at a point now where I try to figure out

00:24:03.640 | the truth in every single piece of feedback,

00:24:05.840 | both positive and negative.

00:24:08.060 | And that's my baseline for how I improve.

00:24:11.940 | I no longer let that drag me down.

00:24:13.820 | Now, that's not to say I'm not human

00:24:16.580 | and I don't get emotional.

00:24:17.580 | Absolutely, when you receive tough feedback,

00:24:19.420 | it's, you gotta deal with that.

00:24:21.140 | And sometimes you need to go for a run

00:24:22.920 | or maybe sometimes you just need to talk to somebody.

00:24:24.900 | But I think the way I process these things now,

00:24:28.660 | thanks to mentors I have in my life now

00:24:31.780 | or close people that I use as a sounding board,

00:24:34.220 | that has been really, really helpful.

00:24:35.960 | And if I can provide one piece of advice to you

00:24:40.520 | watching this,

00:24:41.760 | don't find your mentor solely based on job title.

00:24:46.760 | Find one based on life experience,

00:24:49.100 | meaning your mentor doesn't have to be

00:24:51.160 | in your line of business or work.

00:24:53.320 | It could be someone whose life experience

00:24:55.180 | took them somewhere

00:24:56.400 | and how they solve something is what gives you value.

00:25:00.560 | Cool, so I hope this was helpful for you guys.

00:25:03.680 | I just wanna leave you with a thought.

00:25:06.420 | You are valuable, you are.

00:25:10.120 | And you have experience regardless of how old you are.

00:25:16.040 | You have life experience.

00:25:18.560 | And all of that will build you

00:25:20.500 | and continue to build you into the person who you are now

00:25:24.040 | and who you're going to be.

00:25:26.160 | You're valuable, you bring something to the table.

00:25:29.400 | You're amazing.

00:25:30.840 | Don't be afraid to take risks.

00:25:32.860 | Don't be afraid to bet on yourself.

00:25:35.600 | 'Cause when you know what, you're awesome.

00:25:37.800 | And if you don't know it already, you'll discover that.

00:25:40.600 | (upbeat music)

00:25:43.180 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

My Career Journey: Struggle, Success, And Setbacks

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