Speaker 0 00:00:01 Ever since you can remember, you felt something in your chest telling you to move, to love, to speak, to try day after day. You pretend you don't hear. Maybe you dismiss it as silliness or worse, but it's there ready for you? My name is Johnny G and I invite you to join me on a journey of awakening as we dare to embrace our, this is refractive. Hello? Hello everybody. This is Johnny G and I'm delighted to share with you a bonus episode. This is the audio from a special session I had with my friend and colleague, Randy Bron. You might remember her from an earlier episode, titled self care for parents. She and I, as two coaches who help people who are transitioning in out and through different careers, we decided to team up and offer a free virtual event where we would discuss some of our best tips and strategies for navigating the sometimes difficult path of looking for a job. This is not going to follow the format of a normal podcast episode, because it is just a recording of this live session, where we were interacting with participants. Although the only voices you'll hear are Randy's and mine. So we wanted to make it available because there's so much useful information we covered and I believe it's going to be useful to the refractive podcast audience enjoy. And we'll be back with a more traditional episode in the coming weeks. Have a great day.
Speaker 1 00:01:56 Welcome to coaches in conversation, how to jumpstart or re-energize your job search. I want to welcome you all, you know, good afternoon. If you're here on the East coast with us. Good morning. If you're joining us from the West coast, maybe good evening. If you're in Europe, I saw at least one person on our registration list, um, who was from overseas, at least I'm Randy Braun. I'm joined here by Johnny. Um, Johnny, do you think that we should give it a few more minutes? Or do you think that we're at quorum?
Speaker 0 00:02:27 Uh, I think we're acquiring. I mean, I'm going to continue to monitor the waiting room. Hello to my friend, Sue from Philly. And, uh, now I think we should stay on target.
Speaker 1 00:02:37 Awesome. Um, well, let's jump in Johnny. Do you want to welcome everybody?
Speaker 0 00:02:42 Absolutely. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to coaches in conversation. I know that Randy and I are both so excited to be here today. And, uh, you know, in this time there's so many people whose careers have been just put in the blender and we thought that by putting our heads together, we might be able to offer our gifts to you in giving the same type of advice that we give to our clients in order to supercharge their job search, pull back the curtain and, uh, you know, and do some good. So that's really what we're focused on today. Um, we're gonna, we're gonna give you a peek into how we make the donuts.
Speaker 1 00:03:26 Yeah. And thank you all again for joining us, you know, just to reiterate Johnny, we're so excited to have you all. I see that there's people here from Vancouver, from Savannah, um, people who love donuts Ivy, and this is a great group and, you know, Johnny, um, what our, what our attendees should know is that we spend a lot of time talking to each other. In fact, the other night I was on the phone and my daughter comes in, she goes, are you talking to Johnny again? Um, and so we're just so excited to welcome you all to the conversation, um, to hit record on this for those who couldn't make it. And Johnny, I feel like I just have to brag on you a little bit, um, because you're my friend. And I think so highly of you, you just gave us the thumbs up.
Speaker 1 00:04:07 Yeah. So maybe you can help me brag on Johnny. Um, and even though Johnny, I know you really well. I'm gonna refer to my notes to introduce you to the group because your background is so impressive that I just want to make sure that I get all the details. So a 16 year veteran of the private sector, human resources and training world, Johnny <inaudible> is a motivational speaker, coach facilitator, and the founder of refractive coaching.com. Having experienced a period of intense darkness that pushed him onto a path of emotional, spiritual, and professional growth. Johnny uses public speaking and coaching to connect his clients and his audiences to their highest source of inner wisdom, his podcast, the refractive podcast, which you can either listen to on refractive podcast.com or anywhere really where you get your podcasts. These days is anchored in stories of authentic living career growth and spiritual connection. Johnny, I am so excited. I couldn't be more grateful to have you as a friend and a colleague and to co-facilitate this session today.
Speaker 0 00:05:11 Thank you so much, Randy. I appreciate it. And I hope you let me, uh, return the favor because you as well, Randy, as a master in business development and, uh, and sales, you have really enhanced my own network with your skills and, and I'm grateful for your friendship. So I'd like to kind of refer to my notes as well on what brought you to where you are today, if that's okay. Um, so specializing with working women and mothers, Randy is an executive coach. She is also a successful speaker and the founder of something major coaching.com. She's coached emerging and established leaders from across diverse sectors, like the fortune 500 government, of course, being in DC law, advocacy medicine, nonprofit tech, startups, and trade associations to Randy is passionate about her role in helping women, uh, so that they can level up lead on purpose and navigate transitions in their lives.
Speaker 0 00:06:09 A thought leader on women's professional advancement. She's been featured by the Washington post by Forbes parents magazine, the Chicago Tribune, and many others. So thank you, Randy, for sharing this with me to get started. I think we should just jump right on in, and I'm continuing to just monitor to admit anyone else who hops into the waiting room. Uh, but Randy, you are a connector. It's one of your, your primary gifts. So many of us, including myself, are really intensely nervous about networking. It's never felt like a natural ability for me. And now that we are in a virtual world, as we can all tell as a part of a virtual, uh, session today, um, networking has moved into that phase. So could you share with us some of your experiences on how to take virtual networking and make it just plain great networking?
Speaker 1 00:07:02 Yes. And, and to your point, Johnny, I would say, you mentioned in passing that I started my career in sales and business development, and I feel like the bridge between business development and coaching, which are so different, the link there is just an addiction to great conversations. Um, and so I'm so excited that we're going to kick off our conversation with this topic. You know, let's talk about networking and relationship building in two different ways. The first thing is thinking about how we cultivate our existing network connections. And the second thing is how do we build new network connections when we're all sitting in zoom rooms like this? So first let's talk about how we talk about the people who are existing relationships in our network. I can't say this enough, reach out. And I know that sounds like common sense, but when I talk to women, women in my coaching practice, the friends who call me up and say, can I get your advice on this?
Speaker 1 00:07:56 People feel like in this COVID-19 world that reaching out feels transactional these days, right? To reach out and say, can I get your help? Just has this exactor because you can't just meet for coffee in your favorite spot or meet for drinks in your favorite spot. And it's counterintuitive, but I encourage you to not reach out to people and ask them, can I pick your brain? Or can we catch up be specific about what you want to talk about? And when you are proposing, you speak so many of us are so exhausted. Um, I'm seeing with my clients when they change the talk track from, can you catch up to, can you help me with something specific? They're getting a much higher response rate from people who are willing to carve out the time to do it. So number one, reach out same goes for making new network connections.
Speaker 1 00:08:42 Okay. I'm really bullish on this. It's a weird time, but it's a really good time to make new network connections. Everyone is in the same boat. Um, and so I encourage you come to virtual events, turn on your, participate in the networking, breakouts, the active in the chat, follow up with people on LinkedIn and ask people in your existing network, who you can connect with that they know and why specifically you are looking to make new network connections. You know, a few just I'll close out with a few do's and don'ts whether it's existing or new network connections, again, do be specific about what you want to talk about. And when no, can we pick your brain or catch up at your convenience? Do you come prepared with questions and not just shows preparation, but if you are a hyper extrovert like me, it will keep you on track.
Speaker 1 00:09:31 If you are more introverted, it will help make the conversation less overwhelming and less draining. And then just finally back to that transactional concern, don't come and ask a million favors, but do you come ready to show value? Maybe it is an article you read on the internet that they might value a show you're obsessed with on Netflix right now. Um, do you make one or two thoughtful asks and do make sure you ask what you can do for them in return, even if the answer is nothing, just asking the question, shows that you care about keeping the relationship two sided.
Speaker 0 00:10:05 It's amazing. You make it sound. And I mean, in my brain, I know that it, I know that it's not complicated, but it feels like such a big bear for many of us. So this is really strong advice. Thank you, Randy.
Speaker 1 00:10:20 Yeah. And Johnny, you know, this is a coaching tip in general that I'm sure you'll agree with. Um, the biggest leap that we make in our life happen one small step at a time, not like flipping a switch too. I've been really apprehensive to network. And after this webinar with Randy and Johnny, I'm going to go email a hundred people. No, it's about what are you going to say yes. To every day, small step. What are you going to say no to? So maybe you're going to say no to feeling fearful this afternoon after you leave us. And maybe you're going to say yes to writing an email to one person in your network who you can ask to specifically get together with them. And final thing Johnny, before I want to, I just want to switch gears to another topic, but you know, just final thought here is ask people these days, you know, do they prefer to chat on the phone or chat on zoom because they might be zoomed out and say no to you because they just can't be on one more video conference.
Speaker 1 00:11:14 Whereas they might've said yes, if you had offered them, could we catch up over the phone? Um, so I'll put that out there. I could talk about relationships all day. Um, as I already mentioned, I have a problem. I am addicted to great conversations, which is one of the things I most enjoy about our friendship. Um, but Johnny, I want to talk about resumes and LinkedIn, because you are the guy I send my own clients to when they need a killer resume or resume rewrite. Can you please share with us all of the amazing secrets and I'm going to plug your podcast one more time because a 30 minute podcast that you did on this topic is something that I sent to every single person who ever asked me a resume question to tell us all the secrets.
Speaker 0 00:11:57 Absolutely. Thank you so much, Randy. So, you know, um, I know that the people who are attending today are highly motivated job seeker. So I'm not going to take your time to talk about things like basic formatting and spell check. I am encouraging you to give appropriate adequate time for flawless content, flawless formatting. Okay. And I'll leave it at that. Now resumes are advertisements. You're sending a really complex brochure. And so just the same way a tourist brochure is going to have pictures of the beach and all of that kind of good stuff. You are focusing on helping your potential interviewer to visualize you in a role because at the launch of every single idea that has ever happened has been a visualization. So I cannot overemphasize how important it is. Uh, in fact, the resume's entire job is to help this person paint a picture of imagining you in the organization.
Speaker 0 00:13:02 So you get an interview. That's what we're talking about here. So, uh, what are you doing to make it easy for this person to visualize you being hired in order for you to do that, you need to understand where they're coming from, what their goals are, what their vision is, what they're trying to accomplish, because this is a two way relationship. We're talking about establishing a win, win bi-directional relationship. So do you understand what's important to the business that you're trying to join? It's probably money, right? Um, let's be honest. It's probably achieving their metrics and goals. If it is a heart-based organization, it's going to be furthering their mission and that vision. And so the information you put on your resume should be tailored to helping that person overlay their goals and metrics onto you as a candidate and as a person, there's a reason it's called human resources, right?
Speaker 0 00:14:05 How do we do that though? Numbers numbers are golden. The language of business is numbers. So as an HR director, I cannot tell you how many job descriptions I received, uh, in the form of a resume for the jobs I was hiring. I almost never needed someone to give me their previous job descriptions. And that's what resume formatting tends to look like. It's a list of duties and responsibilities. I don't need that. If I'm hiring a sales, a sales manager, and someone has been a sales manager before, if you spend your precious resume real estate telling me what a sales manager does, you're wasting an opportunity. So I want to encourage you to invest time that you can in going back, starting from today and working backwards slowly and intentionally year by year, every time you achieved a goal on your performance review, every time you were celebrated by your company with a recognition or by the industry that you worked in, um, all of these things need to be charted out so that once you have this database of meat, right, I call it like the meat of the resume, as opposed to the broth.
Speaker 0 00:15:24 Once you have all of this meat, you can really start to insert it in an intentional way. That makes it easy, easy for the interviewer to picture you enhancing their current organization. That's really what it comes down to.
Speaker 2 00:15:42 Another
Speaker 0 00:15:43 Useful tip is that objectives as a part of what was a classic resume format are no longer really necessary today. We're applying to jobs that are posted online. And so you've already told me what your objective was when you clicked that job and attached your resume to it. Um, in the past, when everything was on paper and an organization had 10 jobs open, it got confusing as to which resumes were going to go to which job. So today, if you're short on space, leave out the objective. It's not as necessary as it used to be the same thing for references. Um, no one is going to check your references before they interview you. It is, uh, unless they have a connection in your current company or a past company, if they have someone they know, they might pick up the phone and say, Hey, tell me about this guy, right?
Speaker 0 00:16:35 But no, one's going to call strangers to do the very time consuming, work of checking references for someone they haven't even met. So it doesn't help get you a resume, an interview unless you have an exceptional person on your resume, right? So if you have like a former cabinet secretary, um, as a reference, okay, maybe that is worth the space, it takes up. Otherwise you can bring a paper copy of your reference list in a formatting that matches your resume. You can bring that to your interview, or if it's digital, you can email it just before the interview so that the person has it there
Speaker 2 00:17:18 For a higher
Speaker 0 00:17:19 Level of resume, be an art critic. Think about your resume as an art critic. What is the subliminal tale that your document is telling? So once you've ensured flawless content and meaty information, the next thing is to step back and to look at your resume. Does it feel cramped?
Speaker 2 00:17:42 Does it look crisp?
Speaker 0 00:17:45 Does it seem complicated? Are there too many fonts and too many of font and too many weights, bold and medium and light and italic. Um, you know, if it feels complicated that takes extra brain energy, and I'm telling you that on a subliminal level, the amount of brain energy it takes to process your resume counts. I don't want to bring someone into my organization. Who's going to take up a lot of my time and resources. So I want someone who speaks the same figurative language as me. So the resume should be pleasant to look at pleasant, to read user-friendly. So think about it that way. Um, I'll tell you that experimental fonts are almost always gonna work against you. Fonts need to be classic. They need to be simple, easy to read and they need to be airy. So I'll give you some specific recommendations for fonts and, uh, uh, uh, that I like to use.
Speaker 0 00:18:46 If you like a font that doesn't have Sarah riffs, I suggest Avenir a V E N I R. It is, uh, just a little bit more stylish than something like Ariel, but it's still simple and plain and classic and easy to read if you like a form, a more formal font with Sarah's, but you don't want to use times new Roman because like, who does a Californian F B, California, F B is a really good Sarah font. It's easy to read. And, uh, someone fonts have stylist, stylistic elements that make them feel more compressed. And again, when I'm looking at an overall document, if your, if your page looks compressed, um, it's, it doesn't make me excited to read it. You know, my last pro tip that I want to share, and this is something that I feel most people don't even consider, but I do it 100% of the time when I create a resume for a client.
Speaker 0 00:19:49 Um, I go into the text formatting and you can Google how to do this. I won't go into the time to do this, but what I do is I adjust my character spacing. So Google, how do I adjust character spacing? And you'll see how to do that. Um, I add just a tiny bit of extra space between characters, um, in my words, word processing software, uh, normally adding a point, maybe 1.2 points, um, add just that tiniest bit of air. You wouldn't even notice it, but it's subliminal. Again, it adds a sense of crispness and airiness and serenity to your resume. And, uh, it really does make a difference. So, um, that's what I'm going to share today, uh, on resumes. And if you have other questions, um, about any of the topics talking about today, you can add them into the chat box and we'll go through as many as we can. But Randy, I know for a fact is a LinkedIn wizard. Okay. And I have, as a member of her LinkedIn network, I have seen her navigate LinkedIn, uh, to a very effective level. So I I'm sure a lot of you today learned about this event from Randy's networking on LinkedIn. So Randy, can you help people level up their LinkedIn game?
Speaker 1 00:21:17 Yeah. You know, Johnny, you say wizard, um, some people might say woman who spends too much time on the internet. Um, but, and we are starting to get some questions like from Sue, we're going to have time at the end for Q and a, that we've carved out. So throw those in. We will monitor them. Um, but Johnny, to answer your question, the wizardry or the magic, um, let's talk about some things that aren't magic. Um, number one, get a good picture. Um, make sure that your experience is up-to-date make sure you have a good summary because people are going to see your LinkedIn most of the time before they see your resume with your resume with your LinkedIn. Um, I was recently on a panel with a head Hunter and she had this great quote that I love. She was like on your resume and on your LinkedIn, tell me the information, tell me the facts.
Speaker 1 00:22:05 Like, what do you do? What are the numbers? What are you an expert at? And then dazzle me with your stories when you get to the interview. But if you can't get to the interview, you don't have time to dazzle on it. So one of the things that I love about LinkedIn is that it's really the democratization of thought leadership. And what I mean by that is that everybody gets to have an insight. Everybody gets to have a point of view. So I encourage you to post once or twice a week, an article in your industry, in the industry, you're trying to move into, you know, how are you being active and thoughtful? I encourage you to, like, I encourage you to comment, attach your name to articles, insights, conversations that are valuable in your industry because staying top of newsfeed keeps you top of mind.
Speaker 1 00:22:52 So LinkedIn is a great way to attach yourself to great ideas, to attach yourself, not just as a thought leader on your ideas, but if someone in the know in your industry and to nudge people like, Hey, I'm here without emailing them to say, Hey, I'm here. So I really do encourage you to use it actively if not just posting once or twice a week on LinkedIn every single day. And if you are sitting here like, Oh, I have a bad picture. And we're in a pandemic, find someone on TaskRabbit, find someone who's a friend, and just do a socially distance kind of moment of having fun with somebody. Um, you know, Johnny to this idea of attaching ourselves to great conversations. I want to shift gears and talk about interviewing. I know that from being on the HR side of the house, I was on the sales side of the house at organizations. You and I both have strong opinions on how to influence stakeholders and make a Mark. And I was hoping that you could share some of your tips on what makes a really great interview impression from the HR side of the table.
Speaker 0 00:23:57 Yeah. Thank you. Um, I'll tell you, practice makes perfect, right? Think like an athlete, um, find someone that you feel safe to, you know, work through the kinks with and let them interview you. You can easily go online and find a list of like the top interview questions, give a friend that list and say, interview me, and then give me honest feedback. Um, sometimes a question seems really easy to answer, but when you're picking the words for it, you start to trip. So by saying these answers to the most common questions like, you know, what strengths do you bring the organization? Why have you left your last job? You know, why is it that working for this company matters to you when you get these questions? Um, it's helpful to have tried before. Also, I want to encourage you as an HR director who has interviewed, I don't even know how many people, if you're nervous, be transparent about it, it is 100% okay to tell your interviewer, wow, I didn't, I didn't expect to be this nervous because what that does for me, it gives me a chance to back off and pivot my tone a little bit, because I want to see the best you have to offer, you know, wild, seeing someone in a high pressure interview situation is a useful experience for me in judging their future performance.
Speaker 0 00:25:27 I also want this to be a successful interview. So if I know I'm making someone nervous without even realizing it, I can back off a little bit. I can give the person a chance to breathe, offer them some more water, do what I need to do to make you more comfortable. And just that pause can help you gain your footing and really knock it out of the park. Something that, uh, happened a lot in interviews is when I would ask people about their successes and impacts and achievements in their previous jobs, they would talk about how the organization it's achieved it. A revenue increase year over year for three years, things like that. Well, that's wonderful. So my next question is obviously walk me through the strategy that you employed. Well, this is where, uh, this is where the fluff comes in. Um, and so to boil this down to a bottom line, I want to tell you, if you don't have a strategy that you built and launched and executed don't claim an achievement, right?
Speaker 0 00:26:36 So if your organization merged with another organization, so of course your numbers skyrocketed, you did not play a strategic role in achieving that. And so it makes me feel as the interviewer that I can't accept your answers at face value. When I uncover an achievement that it might not have really been fair for you to claim. So I just want to, uh, encourage you to focus on what you did every day and how you knocked it out of the park. And so Randy, from the position of someone who has been successful in closing the deal over and over, um, why don't you share some of your interviewing tips?
Speaker 1 00:27:26 Yeah, absolutely. And, um, there are so many ways to be influential in conversations like this angina, you name some of them, you know, one of the most important things I learned in my sales career. And it's so transferable to interviewing for a job is that people want to invest in people who can solve their problems, period. And that's why I am such a huge fan of the star method for answering interview question. You know, when you get a question about to Johnny's point, tell me about a time when star S situation, what was the situation T task? What was the task that, that situation created a action? What action did you take? And then our result, what was the result? Do not forget the result. You know, Johnny, you're sharing this really important push to all of us to really only, you know, talk about things.
Speaker 1 00:28:16 We can take credit for it. One thing I want to caution, especially the women on the phone on is be careful about your language, because you don't want to swing the pendulum too far in the other direction. Don't say we did this, we did that. We accomplished this. When I achieved this, I accomplished that if they, to Johnny's point, the other kind of side of that is if they don't feel like you actually did accomplish anything, they're going to be skeptical. And when you say we, we, we, you actually undermine your own credibility. So people really do pick up what you put down. If you accomplish something, if you played an integral role on the team, if you even played a supporting role, talk about again, what was the situation, the task, your action, and the result that it made because huge initiative, do you have multiple stakeholders?
Speaker 1 00:29:02 So being authentic about the role you played is so important. And then the last two things I just want to offer here, um, are, you know, one's a little COVID-19 hack. We are all on zoom, connect your video, connect your video to the internet. Okay. And then audio right here, I'm on my phone because if my internet, you know, um, all of a sudden decides to close out on itself, I don't want to be, or I don't want to be gargly, signal's bad for a moment. And it's a little awkward. You get into the zoom room and you can't connect to audio until the host or the interview Le like Johnny lets you in. Just tell them, hold on one moment. I'm just going to connect to phone audio, and I'm sure they'll hang tight for a second. And then lastly, um, you know, one little thing I just want to put a plug in for is, do not forget to send a thank you note within 24 hours, ideally the same day.
Speaker 1 00:29:57 And I know that this should be common sense, but if someone who works and then led sales teams, I can tell you, I was horrified by how many people would come and interview for a sales job, where your ability to follow up is part of the core competencies would come and blow us away in the interview. And then we would not get a thank you note for that. So, you know, there's so much more that we could talk about on this topic. Um, but Johnny, I know that we want to kind of get to what I call the good stuff, which is around our clarity drivers and our limiting beliefs. But see, we're getting a few questions on interviews and resumes. I'm going to parking lot, those for a second, if that works.
Speaker 0 00:30:33 Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, the reason people come to a coach and the reason you and I got into this role is that so many people have space for growth around the way they hold themselves back. And so I'd love to hear from you, how do you help your clients navigate the voice of the inner sabotage, which we're all familiar with and then the doubt that causes us to, uh, hesitate and hold ourselves back.
Speaker 1 00:31:05 Yeah. So, you know, we should do another session on this. I'm actually leading a free workshop on quieting the voice of our inner critic. So I'll make sure that I throw that link in the chat before we all part ways today. Um, but we can't talk about, you know, limiting beliefs without talking about stories that we tell ourselves. And so I just want to say your past does not define your future. It is a data point. So let me just be clear about this and say this again, the bad boss who made you question your ability, the bad job, that was a, just a bad fit. Um, that makes you wonder it, wonder if you're doing the right things in your life, the bad salary or the bad title that's making you feel like you can't ask for more the layoff or the amount of time it's taking you to get rehired, um, or find a new job.
Speaker 1 00:31:53 If you're leaping from one you're in, that's making you wonder if you'll ever be hireable again, these things do not define you. They are situational, right? Like Johnny, I know you agree with this, these, these things don't divide us. And so I want to encourage you do not be afraid to try something new, do not be afraid to try something old in a new context, do not be afraid to get curious. I can tell you a story from my own career. I had a hunch in one of my corporate jobs that I was being underpaid. So I started talking to peers. I started researching glass door and I started interviewing for new jobs. I didn't tell them when they asked me what I wanted to get paid, what 10 or 15% more was on top of my current salary. I went out with what I thought my market rate was.
Speaker 1 00:32:37 And when they hired me, they, when they hired me, they ultimately paid me a hundred percent more than I was making. I literally doubled my salary in a single leap by going after what I knew I was worth. So don't let these stories haunt you. It's never too late to do those things. You know, lastly, I just want to put a plug in, you know, one for women, women tend to only apply if they have a hundred percent of the qualifications, whereas men will apply. If they have as little as 60%, if you think you could potentially do this job, throw your hat in the ring. And then lastly, be really thoughtful. Where are you making decisions in your life from a place of, should I should do this? I should do that because should, is a place of expectations, old stories that we've told ourselves.
Speaker 1 00:33:21 And I want to invite you to think about could put, is the place of aspiration, creativity, innovation. You know, what changes when you start coming from could, could you be less burnt out, get paid more, have better boundaries. I have a client who just pulled herself out of the running. She was a finalist for a job and it was a perfect on paper should job. And when we switched the script from what's the cost of saying no to this job, to what's the cost of saying, yes, it was a no-brainer this job just isn't the right fit for her. And she was willing to roll the dice. So, you know, Johnny, I could go on and on. I want to hear some of your tips, but I just know you and I both feel so passionately about that.
Speaker 0 00:34:01 You know, I only have one thing to say about, about that. Um, I'll tell you that when I am hiring people, I go by a really simple, uh, philosophy. If it's not a yes, it's a no, right. So 90%, yes is no. And I want to encourage all of you to follow that philosophy when you are, uh, thinking about your profession, if it fits you 75%, I mean, look, it's ultimately up to you and to, to juggle all the different aspects of your life. But I believe that there is room in all of our lives for a job that is a 100%. Yes. And while, sometimes we make sacrifices for the wellbeing and future of our family and these things are super important. And I don't want to take away from that. Um, if you find yourself in a position that is not a hundred percent, yes.
Speaker 0 00:35:01 Ask yourself why, if you have a great reason for it, that's fine. You can come to peace with that. But if you are saying yes, because you believe it's the best you could do, um, that is yourself holding you back. That's the call's coming from inside the house. The murder is coming from inside the house. Like that is not someone else boxing you in that is you boxing yourself in. So I just want to kind of close out that section with that. Uh, we'll comment, Randy, as we move on. And I just want to remind everyone that's, uh, joined us, um, a little bit later, we are recording this session. So I just want to be, um, uh, transparent about that. And as you come up with questions, please feel free to put it in chat. We'll go in order at the end and we'll do the best we can to go through as many as we can. So, Randy, I know that you and I left our mainstream. I mean, I don't want to say coaching isn't mainstream, but we left our, uh, our current corporate jobs. Yes. Our corporate jobs. And we became coaches because we felt a shift in what it meant to live on purpose. And you even put that in your bio that you present out to clients. So, um, I know how strongly you feel about helping people live their life on purpose. What is that about?
Speaker 1 00:36:23 Yeah. And you know, Johnny is so much of it connects to what we were just talking about, you know, um, in my own personal journey, I literally never dreamed of running my own business. It's not even like, it's not something I thought about. It's something that I would think about every time I sat down to watch shark tank and I would say to myself, I never want to run my own business. And yet here I am and I love it. I've never loved a job. I have more than this. I ended up coming to coaching, just kind of following what was interesting me and, you know, putting more and more in my energy to supporting women. And lo and behold years later, I wake up every day. I have the best job in the world because I talked to high performing high potential women and mother leaders, but that's my journey.
Speaker 1 00:37:04 Um, and that wouldn't be the right journey for the overwhelming majority of the people on our call. So what I really work with my clients when we're talking about what purpose looks like for them is really digging deep with them on their drivers and figuring out what's important to you about your life. What are your core values, your personal goals, your financial goals, do your piece before Johnny, because financial is important, your family and your relationship goals. How do we engineer work to that instead of reverse engineering, everything in our life to work. And I don't want to make that sound reductive. There's a reason Johnny, why you and I work with our clients for months at a time, because those are big questions that take a lot of exploration, but I want each one of our attendees to walk away a little bit more curious about that today.
Speaker 1 00:37:47 What's important to me about my life. Okay. And then where does work connect to that last thing I will offer? Because I want to make good Johnny on our promise to really pull back that curtain for folks about what do we do as coaches that they can learn from today is that I want to share with you an exercise that I think Jonny does with his clients as well, which is I'll sometimes work with them to visualize what is their retirement party look like? Who would be there? Where is it held? Who's speaking, what are people eating even down to? What are people drinking like their champagne glasses, clinking, and granted, this is more of a facilitated exercise. Um, but I encourage you, um, and dare you to dream a little bit and like fantasize about what that retirement party looks like. Um, because it's not going to be a light, but there might be some glimmers or like little nuggets there of inspiration that will surprise you.
Speaker 0 00:38:42 Yeah, absolutely. Randy, I, uh, yeah, I'm just, I'm buzzing with, I'm buzzing with the energy of this. You know, this is our suite, this is our sweet spot. You and I love this.
Speaker 1 00:38:54 This is what we love. Right? It's like the resume and the interview and the LinkedIn it's important. Um, but living life on purpose and finding ways to make work a little bit more of a source of joy and a little less of a source of burnout, because we also really do a disservice when we say we should all love our jobs every single day, because nobody can live to that standard. And so if we're not head over heels in love, we somehow feel deficient. Um, we shouldn't settle for dissatisfaction, but really cultivating a quiet and ongoing contentment is something that can bring a lot of meaning to our lives. Instead of having that, like head-over-heels infatuation, you know, when the love is new or the romance is new kind of feeling about our work lives. So Johnny, we could talk about that all day, but you know, I see you smiling. So thanks for being on video.
Speaker 0 00:39:46 Yeah. You know, I, I do want to tell you again, thank you, Sue. Um, it is, it is so wonderful for a present a virtual presenter to see faces. It does make a difference. Um, you know, I I'll close out, um, this topic on purpose just by saying that, um, I mentioned earlier that every great idea, every idea that's ever been executed in the history of the world has started with a visualization, right. With an imagination. And so, uh, that retirement party exercise when, when Randy says dare to dream for a, for a little bit, uh, I'm telling you picture what you want, that retire retirement party to look like. And once it takes form, you can move towards it in an intentional way. So, uh, all right. Let's talk a little bit about resilience because this is a time where we all, uh, we all can relate to feeling a bit beat up and drained and burned out.
Speaker 0 00:40:43 So, um, this is the last question that Randy and I will address before we go into the chat box to read, uh, some, some questions from the participants. So, Randy, I know from looking at your blog and your website and your newsletter, um, that resilience is a major theme, um, especially because you specialize on working with women, um, and navigating these life transitions, uh, and it's so important to be able to bounce back when, uh, when you have a misstep or when you get, uh, maybe boxed in unfairly. So I've seen the materials you've curated and I'd love for you to kind of share, uh, some of the best nuggets you have out of that topic of resilience and bouncing back.
Speaker 1 00:41:30 Absolutely. And, um, you know, this is something that I think about a lot, Johnny, as you've pointed out to me on multiple occasions, including just now that I find myself writing about a lot, um, without even thinking about it. Cause it's just such a natural outgrowth of the conversations I'm having. You know, let's just, level-set elephant in the room right now. Life is hard right now. COVID is hard. Job. Searching is hard. Quarantine is hard. Don't drive yourself crazy when it's the world that's going bananas. And I see a lot of women, especially who I work with having such shame, like why is it taking me so long to get a new job? Why does this feel so hard for me when everyone else is on LinkedIn, daily, reading all these great articles. And I feel like I can barely do my best to get everything done in my dad.
Speaker 1 00:42:15 So, you know, when we talk about staying resilient, um, let's take the shame factor out. Let's acknowledge this as situational, not existential. It is the world that is crazy right now, not us. And we have to double down, you know, it's true. We have to double down on the things we can control for as we've covered today. It's about getting intentional, getting aware and getting tactical. And if I could bottom line as a coach, my philosophy for everything that I do with my clients, and I'm sure you feel the same. It's about getting intentional, getting aware, getting tactical. And that's where we bring back some control. I also just quickly want to talk about the science of this. We have to take care of ourselves. This is not a luxury. It is literally science. And I want you guys to think about a race car, right?
Speaker 1 00:43:01 To Johnny's point. Everything in life has a visualization or a metaphor, a race car, the highest performance race car cannot go 200 miles an hour on the track. If it is empty, that's not my opinion. That's physics, that's physics. And we know that intellectually, but when it comes suddenly, when it comes to our own self care, we think that we can just defy physics and science and say that that, you know, we can run on fumes or we can run on empty. And for those of you who are sitting here saying, that's a nice platitude, but you don't get how busy I am. I will share with you some research out of Harvard business school that just 30 to 62nd pockets. What they call micro moments of self care can have three major impacts in your life. Number one, in a major study that they did those who took a 30 to 62nd micro moment of self care in between tasks or the days they got through more work.
Speaker 1 00:43:55 Their work was perceived as being best in class as compared to their peers. And third, they were the most fulfilled and the least burnt out. Um, so self care, it's not an indulgence. It is a conduit to our performance. Also a conduit tear of our performance is making sure that we are celebrating the wins, sell it. If you're a finalist, if you get the interview, if you discovered a new, awesome takeout place on Uber eats, celebrate the wins, um, life is actually going by really quickly, even though quarantine, can you get fuel excruciatingly slow? Um, and that's part of the, day-to-day finding joy in life. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:44:32 Thank you so much, Randy. Um, you know, I'd like to add, uh, when it comes to resilience that I have found a lot of richness and setting rituals for myself. And when I say rituals, all, I mean is a behavior that is repeated and that is intentional. So I got to tell you when bath and body works has they're like two candles or 50 per buy one, get one free three wick candles. I have a whole cabinet full of candles because part of my self-care ritual is when I sit down, whether it's to read, whether it's to meditate, whether it's to work on my website or to have a client call, I light a candle every time. And just the smell of it. It connects me back to, um, the life that I was meant to live, which is a life of beauty and comfort and flow.
Speaker 0 00:45:23 I was not meant to stress out over a website. I was meant to flow with the power of the universe. And so, um, having these rituals, whether it is having your own cozy little wine corner or whether it is, uh, always grabbing your favorite throw or blanket, whenever you sit down to watch TV, it's little tiny acts of self-love. And just like when you get a Facebook, like once you do these things, a few times, they trigger your brain chemistry, right? Because you've set yourself up like a Pavlov, uh, you know, experiment to know that the love is coming from yourself to yourself. And so it's a powerful way of plugging back into the flow. I also want to comment, Randy mentioned, uh, about letting, uh, learning to let go of the shame around being laid off or, or these other major life things that happen.
Speaker 0 00:46:20 I want to tell you that as someone whose job it was to hire the best candidates when I was interviewing my main focus was, is this good for my company? Does this person make sense to hire it is a human resource. Okay. And I don't mean that, that I thought of everyone like a machine in that way, but it was it okay, this person was laid off. But when I examined their history, do I see a resource for my company? And if I do, I'm going to hire them. Even people who joined my company quit and applied back three or four years later, it's not personal that we let go of that stuff because it's about the business. And if it makes financial sense to bring this resource back onto my team, the personal past is not as relevant. So I just want to comfort you that the people interviewing you, yes, they do care about your persona, but ultimately they're advancing the bottom line of their organization and the mission of their organization. And if you can paint the picture of how you fit into that and make their life easier, they will consider to hire you regardless of gaps in employment, regardless of your past. Um, it's about the future and the present. And the past is only as real as you allow it to be. So, uh, that's how I'm going to close off.
Speaker 1 00:47:54 And Johnny, before we take questions, I just want to show one, two things I want to react to rituals. Rituals can be so small. Ladies and gentlemen, this is my pineapple. Okay. Every morning when I sit down at my desk, okay, this is my pineapple. I just recently came out, showing it on, on zoom calls. I've been hiding it for nine months. Every morning. When I come up to work, this is 64 ounces of water. I fill it up. It brings me joy, seeing it on my desk, rituals, every yet rituals. Every afternoon I make a strawberry banana smoothie and I would love to crowdsource just quickly before we turn to Q and a in the chat, what is a small ritual? Your pineapple, your smoothie, Johnny's point your candle. What's the ritual that's getting you through because I do a beating burnout workshop. And one of my favorite parts, when we talk about ritual in that workshop is everyone crowdsourcing, their favorite thing while we wait for those to come through.
Speaker 1 00:48:45 I also just want to add on one thing, cause we've been talking mostly about people who have, might have a gap from a layoff. I work with a lot of women who are passing back after taking time off to care for children and from time to time, um, care for elderly family members. And, um, what Johnny is saying is just as important. Um, if you've been laid off as if you're coming back to work, it's not about, did you have a gap? It's about, can you tell a story about it compellingly honestly, you know, um, and focus on what you are going to do for them tomorrow, not what you did yesterday. And so we're going to take some costs, uh, some Q and a, but Johnny, I just want to read some of these in the chat. We have dance morning meditation, um, coffee, making tea, Christmas ornaments, um, so loves their $3 Ikea milk froth or bonus points.
Speaker 1 00:49:39 Um, if you can throw that into the chat, I want to buy that for myself. Um, this is why I love crowdsourcing ideas. So we're going to turn it over to your questions and Johnny, I'm going to turn the very first one over to you. Um, because we got a question that was about resumes. Um, and the question is this my resume right now. And by the way, Johnny and I are going to do these lightning round style. We're going to try and give each question just about 60 seconds so we can get through as many as possible. Yes. Question one. My resume right now looks good visually, but explains what I've done in my various roles, my skills transfer, but I don't have many industry achievements to highlight on my resume. I've spent many years as a grad student and I'm trying to transition into non-profit social justice work. Do have any, uh, any, any questions, Johnny, any thoughts, um, to give back to that participant?
Speaker 0 00:50:33 Absolutely. So what you need, anyone who wants to transition into a type of role that they have not had before should be focusing on what's called an experience-based resume and an experience-based resume. Um, the format is that, uh, after your name, uh, the first information that really appears is a list of three or four very valuable experiences that you have skills, expertise, or experiences that are going to be key for the type of job you want. So for someone who wants to get into events management, right, like conference management and meeting management, right. They may not have formerly had that before, but if they have worked on, if they have skills in project management, that's something that transfers. So I would list project management and then I would give context, they need that from, uh, from this job, that job, this job, that job that really paints the picture, why I'm skilled in project management, then, uh, the next might be in, um, I don't know if I'm talking about events management, it might be something. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:51:46 Johnny, what I was going to say is that, uh, not to cut you off, but you have so many good examples of this, on that resume podcast. So can we promise everybody that we're going to get this up? Cause Johnny takes like five or 10 minutes to go through so many different examples. So if you have more, you want to share. Now we can, I just don't want you to feel on the spot to pull rabbits out of hats on this one, when you have so many great ones recorded.
Speaker 0 00:52:08 Yes. You know, I will just close that point by saying that at the bottom of the resume, you do put a, uh, an employment history on, but with no other information than a company and dates and titles. So thank you, Randy, for keeping me on target. We got questions to go through.
Speaker 1 00:52:24 Yeah, no problem. No problem. Um, you know, the next question is from grace, I'm going to take a crack at this one, Johnny, um, and plug a few tools that I know that I love a few I love from you and you can add on. So we had a question. Do you have resources you recommend to the internal examination mentioned in terms of fitting your career to your internal needs and wants, and truly Johnny and I were still passionate about this. We have so many free things on both of our websites. So we're going to throw those links in the chat in a second, something major coaching.com, Johnny what's the refractive website, again,
Speaker 0 00:52:57 Refractive coaching.com.
Speaker 1 00:53:00 And, um, I know that I have a few articles on this. Uh, Johnny has some great podcasts on this. A book that I personally love, especially for women is playing big by Tara Mohr, M O H R. Um, but please check out and we're going to throw them in the chat to something major on the refractive websites, because we have a few articles, um, and including some charts on my website as well. Um, Johnny, I'm going to throw the next one back to you. We have a question about, you know, being furloughed from one industry, how do you figure out which of your skills are the most transferable to another?
Speaker 0 00:53:37 I think the most important part of that is looking at the type of job you want, having clarity around the direction you want to move into, and then you work backwards from there. Um, you know, if you are interested in pivoting to a new type of role, you've got to really pick apart what makes a person successful in that role and then communicate, uh, skill by skill what it is, uh, which of those boxes you're checking off.
Speaker 1 00:54:04 Yeah. I love that. That's such great advice. We got a question about, you know, a gap spanning, you know, multiple years. How do you explain that Johnny? Is there anything, you know, from the HR side of the house that you would elaborate on for that, that we haven't already hit?
Speaker 0 00:54:21 Um, what I would say about that is, um, if you paint an accurate picture of the value you bring to the organization, and if you have a reasonable, uh, you know, reason that makes any sort of sense as to why there was a gap, the interview was going to move on, okay. It's when you are not painting the picture of how valuable you could be, that, um, those other side issues become more primary.
Speaker 1 00:54:53 I love that. Um, two questions that I'm going to quickly lightning round take number one, someone asks, is this the, is the recording something that we're going to share? Yes, we are absolutely going to share the recording. Um, we'll share it with you in video. And I think Johnny, we're going to make a bonus track of this for your podcast, correct?
Speaker 0 00:55:10 Absolutely. So this whole thing will be posted as, uh, on the podcast, refractive podcast.com or you can search refractive anywhere that you listen to podcasts and it will be there.
Speaker 1 00:55:21 Um, I'm going to take this next question from Bree Johnny, which, um, was, you know, I've heard that most people spend 80% of their time applying for jobs, 20% networking, but is it more effective to swap it to 80% networking and 20% applying to jobs? What would you recommend as time management in this regard? Um, the statistics just show that if you, um, have an in, at the job by someone who can personally flag your resume, you are multiple times more likely to get an interview. Doesn't mean you'll get the job. You got to earn that in the interview, but to basically get, come, come out of this huge search engine database or piles of paper. And, um, so I highly recommend I don't have a specific formula, but I would recommend splitting at least half of your time to networking half to applying. If not more, it's a little industry specific it's goal specific, but I can't reiterate enough.
Speaker 1 00:56:16 We talked about relationship building at the top of the hour, building those relationships is so important and it's not because we're, but it's because people genuinely want to help other people. If they don't understand what you want, what you're looking for, how they can help, they won't help it's our jobs to connect the dots for them. Um, and I also last thing here, we'll say I recommend setting little mini goals for yourself for the week. Are there five people that you want to reach out to this week? Are there five jobs you want to reach out to this week? Um, set actually on your calendar time blocks for how you're going to spend your time, um, job searching. So Johnny I'll let you have the final word on that question. Then I think we should spend a minute wrapping up, letting people know how they can continue the conversation with us. And we'll also have our contact information. If people had a question that they didn't get answered today.
Speaker 0 00:57:06 Yes. So, um, what I'll say as far as the networking aspect is networking is a long game, right? So if you're looking to be hired today, yes, you should be networking right away. But, um, really, uh, effective networking is done by building a group of people over time. So what can you do today? You can go onto meetup and you can find groups of people that have similar interests and you can start attending these virtual events. Um, you should be doing searches on LinkedIn on a regular basis and sending connect requests to people that you think are a good addition to your network. And then you need to be posting articles, thoughts, uh, and things that help someone understand how you tick and what makes you tick. That is the key. And then over time you then have a network you can pull from in retrospect. So close off on that.
Speaker 1 00:58:06 Yeah, Johnny, um, let's I know people have to jump off for one o'clock calls. If they're on the East coast, um, quickly, how can people keep in touch with you?
Speaker 0 00:58:14 Please send me an
[email protected]. You can also visit the website, refractive coaching, uh, dot com, or you can find me on the podcast and in all of those ways, please connect. I'm happy to help and answer questions.
Speaker 1 00:58:32 Yeah. And I'll share as well. I'm putting this in the chat. Um, a few things that I want to highlight for you all. Number one, I have a bunch of free workshops coming up. One on growing your career while growing your family. One on quieting, your inner critic. Um, and one, that's a fireside chat with my dear friend, Ashley Hicks about race and identity in the workplace. That's number one, number two. Um, and Johnny, by the way, you weren't going to want to resend that link because it only came through to me for everyone's benefit. Um, number two, um, I am running a women's leadership program that starts in the winter. So if that is something that you're interested in, feel free to get in touch with me using LinkedIn or my newsletter. Um, no matter what, please keep in touch with me. Keep in touch with Johnny. I want to hear from you on LinkedIn. Um, check out that free insight center on my website. Um, you know, subscribe to my, if you're interested in career and leadership development content, but you feel free to send me an Johnny questions. We love to keep in touch with people. We love to do sessions like this, and we hope to see you at a future, something major refractive coaches and conversation of that happy new year, everybody and stays days.
Speaker 0 00:59:39 You so much. Everyone have a wonderful day. You have been listening to a special bonus episode of refractive podcast. This was the recording of a live virtual event between myself and my friend and colleague Randy Braun. You can contact Randy by emailing her at Randy, which is R a N D
[email protected]. All one word, go to her website, check out her insights section there's amazing content and curated articles and research to help you live a more empowered, authentic life. You can get in touch with me by emailing
[email protected]. I am a personal, spiritual and career coach located in Washington, DC. I help people get on track to live their most authentic life. And, uh, I'm certainly available to help. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out. Thank you so much for listening today. Have a wonderful day and always remember to aim your light.
