How to Develop Courageous Confidence for Making Bold Career Choices

How to Develop Courageous Confidence for Making Bold Career Choices

episode-25-courageous-confidence-career-choices

[00:00:00] Bettina M Brown: Hello and welcome to In The Rising Podcast. My name is Bettina Brown and I am the host of this show. I talk about living a life. Without the captivity of guilt and regret, basically living a full, empowered, independent, and free life. I start off every show by saying that I am not a licensed counselor, psychologist, or psychiatrist, but I am a woman with lots of opinions and a healthcare professional who loves to research and kind of try to find out what makes us tick.

So if today's topic and other topics that are put on in this podcast are of interest to you, go ahead, hit subscribe, and leave a review. I enjoy receiving feedback from you, and all of that information is put down below. So welcome again. Today I'm talking about courageous living. Living with the fear, but facing it.

And I did not really know what to talk about today, but I am a really big book nerd. I've talked about books before in this podcast, and I am currently reading a phenomenal book. It's called Pivot, P I V O T, and with the subtitle or subheading called, the Only Move That Matters is the Next one, and it's by Jenny Blake.

And, I was kind of interested to see what she's talking about in this book, but I did not know what I was in for. And if you choose to read this or even listen to some of the synopsis that I'm sure I'm gonna reference this book many, many times, it's really worth the read and it does put into play or talk about living a courageous life.

She primarily talks about career, but I'm gonna go a few steps further. So she has a quote in the beginning that you need to learn how to pivot or get pivoted, and that's directly a quote from her book. And it made me laugh because it's just so simple, but also very telling. You know, I'm in my midlife right now, I'm in my forties, and I was definitely raised with the idea that we need to have a plan.

What are you gonna do when you're older? Where are you gonna live? What are your efforts? You know, kind of a five year plan, a 10 year plan, a 20 year plan, just really have it kinda laid out, which I don't think is bad. But plans were definitely a part of my upbringing. And I would say, even in my college years, they, they would even talk about, well, what are you gonna do?

What are you gonna do? What's the next thing? It was always about what is the next thing and. I really had to figure out what the next thing is with regards to career, for example, and what this book talks about. What I've heard, and even when I was doing my own review with my boss, this year she was talking about a certain program that they were trying to incorporate in the hospital, but also waiting until the turnaround of like nurses was down and it was her thought that.

We will never have a less turnaround of nurses because that's just what people do nowadays. You know that you don't tend to have people work in the same place for 20 or 30 or 40 years, and especially the younger, the person is like, I think below 28, below 30, that they change their job every three years.

And for people in their thirties and forties, the category I'm in, we tend to change jobs every four to five years. So either way, we're not anywhere for 20 or 30 years anymore. And part of this is that corporate loyalty has given way to uncertainty and that 90% of people that are working wherever they're working, whatever they're doing, are not engaged.

Which means they're not really interested. Like they show up, they punch in, they punch out, they clock in, they clock out. They do what they have to do without any vigor, without any excitement, without any innovation. They just kind of come do. And a lot of companies are now doing employee engagement surveys and, and I'm pretty familiar with this at, at my last position, that, you know, we're having the employee engagement, you have to answer it, and you would have a pizza party if everyone answered it.

Everyone from the department did something. You would, you know, they're just trying to get engagement to do the employee engagement survey and. I think it helped figure out, and you know, the, between the book and just kind of thinking about the next things I'm gonna talk to you about today, it really made me think about how can we all live more courageously and fulfilled in the area of our career.

In the areas of our employment in, in what we do with the majority of our day. And a lot of us would love to, you know, work part-time or you know, be a trust fund baby. But that's not something we can really like generate. Most of us are gonna have to do something and I'm still in that category. You know, I would love to do some other things for the majority of my work week.

But I'm here and you know, employed, but I'm also happily employed. So I wanted to talk today about what can we do to face what we do for 40 plus hours a week for a lot of us, and you add some commute time. We're talking upwards of 50, 55 hours a week. How can we live more courageously and fulfilled in that?

So that's what this book talked about, and that's what I wanna cover today. So one of the things that this book also talks about is that you have to be in a place where you can enjoy calculated risk. Now, risk and enjoyment. I, I kind of envision them on the opposite ends of the spectrum. You know, they're just, risk is not something a lot of us enjoy.

Or we think about risk takers, you know, the ones that decide to jump out of perfectly good airplanes or wanna, you know, drive a hundred and something miles an hour. In the middle of the city. You know, it just, just that kind of risky behavior. And there are others of us that were just not designed for that, but there is a little bit of risk with everything we may forget about it.

I believe that we may just negate it, but it's still there. And so why is this so scary for us when it comes to making a living? You know, do we want a six-figure job? Do we want to live or support a nonprofit? Um, should we start one? Do we, should we go for a higher degree? Uh, you know, that that's, it's gonna cost a lot of money.

I'm gonna be in a lot of debt. What's the cost risk ratio and whatever that ratio is, which I have never calculated, not one time in my life, it's just kind of theoretical for me. But whatever it is, is it something I can live with? Well, I am gonna talk about a few things today that I think helps us examine and certainly helped me examine This book has helped open up my eyes, but I've been on this journey for a while and I wanted to share how to live maybe a more fulfilled, risk free, three risk enjoying career.

So number one. My first belief, belief number one, bettina's belief that any career change or job change that affects our basic fundamental needs is scary. And I think we just need to extend grace to that, you know, changing job. Even the book mentions it. It looks good on paper job. In fact, the author worked for Google for a long time, and when she told friends and family she was leaving Google, people said, but that's the greatest company on earth.

Like, what? What? It's hard to get in. Why would you ever leave? But it wasn't fulfilling for her. It wasn't fulfilling for her and changing the job for her and for me as well. You know, looking back on my own life, having a degree in biochemistry, what should I do with that? What could I do with that? And I've been told by a few people, wow, you really wasted that degree cuz you're a physical therapist now and you don't need to know dna.

You don't need to know all about the genetics. But it was a waste. It was a waste. And not, not necessarily. Because there are certain things which are fundamental, like, you know, we need, basic things. Air, food, Walter, water, Walter, maybe you need Walter. Um, shelter. Just things for your psychological, your, your, your physical health.

You know, Maslow's Hierarchy Scale, it's called, I'm gonna put it in there as well. And you need this. And so when you have a job that can. Risk, the basic needs. It's scary. And that's when you are also judged by sometimes your family and sometimes by yourself. In fact, I had a very great conversation with a, , a person, and he was telling me the story of, he got a pay raise.

The,. Company didn't want to pay him so much in overtime, so they actually adjusted his pay and gave him more pay and wouldn't give him overtime till he had worked an additional 10 or 15 hours a week. And you know, he was like describing this to his wife and she said, okay. And you know, asked them questions, well what does that mean?

How much do you make now? How much do you make then? And blah, blah, blah. And he said, you know, about a month later I come home, she has dinner ready. And we're sitting there and she says, I just want you to know I gave my two weeks notice at work. And he said, what? Why would you do that? We have bills to pay.

How did you not consult me? And she said, I did. I asked what you made before and what you're gonna make now. And you know, with all the, it, it's basically the same as what I was making. So I can just not work and not use that gas money. And, um, We're financially the same. And plus, you know, she was really struggling with some aches and pains at her job and she said, you know, I'm physically losing my ability to do basic things.

You know, she was a hygienist and then, you know, you carpal tunnel. If you don't have your hands, you don't have your job. It's kind of like therapy. So it was a really, um, interesting conversation. He said, you know, she was looking at her basic needs of. I wanna be able to use my hands and not have pain all day.

And I was thinking, are we gonna be able to pay the mortgage? How are we gonna pay for food? But once he realized that those were covered, excuse me, then it was completely okay. So that is where the judgment lies for a lot of us. Well, what am I gonna do to provide for myself? But I don't think a lot of us look past that.

You know, shelter and food, and, and water, all of that to look at what else can and is a career supposed to do for you. It's supposed to give you other things on that Maslow's hierarchy, that personal security resources, health, friendship. Coworkers having more self-esteem and status and recognition for all that you do.

And then finally, self-actualization where you are being the very best that you can be. This hierarchy works for every, every component of life. So if we're in a job or in a career where we're just paying the bills, we're not getting the other four parts of that pyramid, and then we feel empty. So just to recognize where that fear is coming from and that there's nothing wrong with that.

Number two, my belief. My belief is follow along with someone else's belief. It's Steven and I can't pronounce his last name, Grotes, G R O O S Z. And he wrote this in a book called The Examine Life, and he says, all change involves loss. All change. We may be afraid of leaving our job because we might be afraid of grieving what we've left.

And we do this in, in every aspect. You know, leaving one job to go to another, you're leaving familiarity. You may have been there at the end of your, you know, if you're below 33rd year, if you're my age group, you've been there four years, which mines will feel like forever, and you feel as though. You're leaving your, your, your childhood home.

You know the routine, you know the culture, you know where you stand in relation to everyone else. And even if you don't like where you stand, you still know where it is. You know what you can get away with. You know what? You can't. You know that you're gonna get another raise. You know that you're maxed out and you're only gonna get bonuses.

You have this sense of knowing and you're risking that you might lose that. In fact, the same goes for personal relationships. For example, you're getting married and you hear a lot people, oh, I'm so excited. I'm getting married. I'm getting married. But there's loss Also, there is loss. There's loss of being single.

You know, if I don't pay my phone bill. I don't have to explain that to anyone. If I feel like shopping on Amazon and I've just clicked go to cart and proceed to check out for the sixth time in one day, I don't have to explain my expenses to anybody. I don't. I don't have to hide my packages in the trunk of my car.

I may have done that before. I don't have to do any of that. You know why? Cuz I don't have to explain that. Well, when you're married you should, my belief, you should be able to communicate that way. I don't have to communicate with anyone, I just do it. So I'm leaving what I'm familiar with and with my job, I may leave what I'm familiar with there.

So there is a loss, and just to know that even in your excitement of moving on to something different, that you will lose something else. And it may very well be worth losing, but that doesn't mean you can't appreciate it. Appreciate for what it's helped you gain, which is your next opportunity, instead of just looking at what you're gonna lose.

My third belief is that we can never see the entire path that leads to our greatest life. And I think this is where that question, what do you plan on doing in five years? Like what, what's your, what is your goal five years from now? And I think some of these are, are great goals to have. You know, like in five years I wanna buy my own house in five years I wanna pay off my car in five years, I wanna finish graduate school.

I think those are legitimate things, but where are you gonna work? I don't know. Is that really a legitimate question? Unless you work for certain entities like the government, it's a high, more, more high chance that that will still be around, but the companies are buying each other out and merging left and right.

The company that I've worked for has been purchased. The building that I'm going to work in has a different name on it than it did two years ago. Things constantly change and you cannot plan everything. I would never have thought five years ago that I would sit here today with a podcast that I would have my book out on Amazon.

That I would have finished my other master's degree, that I would have another certification, and that would be doing what I'm doing today. I would not have been able to predict those things. So I've had a lot of changes and yes, I believe in goals, but we can't see the whole picture. But that whole picture comes to fruition, one move at a time.

And so trying to see everything at one time is just, it's not possible. It's not healthy. I think that's where this title comes in from her book, Jenny Blake, is that the move that matters most is the next one.

We just don't know. And it goes back to, Another quote from Steve Jobs where he talks about, looking at your life, and he goes, you know, "you can really only connect the dots well looking backward." And we know we have dots out ahead of us. We know we have dots in our career, but we don't know, you know, maybe, you know, one merger happens and then poof that, that that dot has been moved out or there's been something else happening.

Has made you switch your dots and that goes on to my fifth belief crisis versus a pivot. And what's the difference? Well, I think a crisis is something that completely changes your world. Divorce, disease, you know, going to work one day and then 10 minutes later coming back home cuz you've been fired, driving to work and having a major car accident.

Your car is totaled and sore your legs. Where pivots are more small changes that continue to happen that allow us to have greater challenges and impact. Now Pivot is getting another certification. A pivot is studying the market so that you can slowly begin to. Do some trading yourself or to just have a little bit better understanding.

When you're speaking to an advisor, I mean, it is your money. Looking at what business you wanna start looking and doing the needs assessment. How can I generate a little bit of money on a continuous basis trying to figure out. What you're gonna do to remodel your home, because you can tell in 10 years that those stairs are not gonna work as well, that that bathtub is not gonna work well.

You need a walk and shower trying to figure out, okay, well should I remodel? Should I maybe look into another home? If I am gonna look into a new home, what area do I like? Small decisions, start investigating, starting to move. Those are pivots. And so far as our career, for us to remain valuable mostly to ourselves and our family, and to our in alignment with our goals and our values.

Pivots are necessary. Pivots are crucial because what you loved at 20 is maybe not what you're in love with. At 30 or 40. I mentioned before that some people had told me my biochemistry degree was worthless because you know, I'm not, clearly, I said, I'm a physical therapist. I don't have a PhD in genetics or biochem, for example.

I'm not working a research laboratory. But I don't think it was worthless. It definitely, I mean, there was a huge pivot. I left research world. I left the possibility of becoming a professor in some university to be a physical therapist, but I used the tools that I gained in that degree. For one, if I can understand or at least pretend to understand as much as possible inorganic chemistry, I can definitely understand anatomy.

And, and that gave me some deep down, deep-rooted confidence that I can get this. It may be hard and it may be tough, and I will have to have flashcards with me all day, every day, but I know in my soul I can do this. And with anything in life so far as as upset as I'll get, I know deep down I have the capacity to do it because I got a biochemistry degree.

Now some may call that cocky. That's okay. But it was so difficult for me that I don't feel I will come across something that will be that difficult for me again. So just gaining that confidence, was that a waste? Just to learn how to think, not what to think, but how to think, how to stop and break a problem down.

Go to the roots, go to the atoms of the problem on the molecular basis, figure that out. Was that really a waste then? Was it? And for me the answer was no. That pivot was necessary. All the experiences I've worked in, uh, the hospital, I've done work in people's homes. I've worked in long-term care facilities, I've done specific things with regards to wounds.

I've also worked with people, um, in the oncology world. All of those experiences come together so that way when someone's in a hospital and and not sure about the next step, I have a full understanding of what they can expect when they go home and what to expect from that rehab. Cuz that's what I did.

It's not something I read about. It was something I lived. If they have to go to a rehab, I can really explain to them and answer their questions and address their fears. You know why? Because that was what I did. Not something I remember learning about when I was in school, but something I did to bring in income.

It was a day in, day out. So my value to that client or that patient in the hospital has increased because of my experience and all of the pivots in my life, and that doesn't have a price. To me that is priceless. And so when someone gives me their experience and their tell tales from all of their pivots in their life, especially career-wise, that is also not a waste.

So I think our fullest life comes from recognizing that our fundamental needs are there, but it's gonna be scary that every change involves some loss. We don't have to see the big picture, the small picture we'll do, and that once we recognize that we're in a pivot, not a crisis, that we can calm down and deal with one thing at a time.

And in this manner we can follow what I call our life compass. And that follows our values. And with that, all of our career moves that follow our values, which change at, you know, time to time. Your values are different when you have children versus you don't, versus you have young children versus you have older children, and that way you can make a life that's fulfilled for you because you are the only person you have to ultimately answer to because you know, You can't lie to yourself.

Well, that is gonna sum up today. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Thank you. And I would just like to say I appreciate your time. I hope you found this episode valuable, and if you did, go ahead, leave a review or subscribe, and I will keep in touch with you next Tuesday. Let's keep building each other up!