125: Avoiding Networking and Job Search Futility with Stephen Warley

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

Top Takeaways

• Stop relying solely on online job applications and start talking to real-live people!
• Create and maintain a list of your existing contacts and reach out to them with curiosity and honesty.
• Understand your desired lifestyle costs and calculate the income needed to sustain it–don’t chase an arbitrary salary number.
• Learn to articulate and demonstrate your value proposition to potential employers/clients.
• Be open to unconventional paths like consulting, freelancing, or non-traditional roles.
• Continuously invest in improving your skills and curating a portfolio of your work.
• Market and promote yourself proactively, don’t just wait for opportunities.
• Identify companies/organizations aligned with your values and interests.
• Explore volunteering or gifting services to showcase your abilities.
• Ask for additional connections/introductions in every conversation.
• Adopt an entrepreneurial, empowered approach to managing your career.
• Form a job search community for support, perspectives, and accountability.
• Don’t undervalue your worth, but remain realistic about market rates.
• Follow up consistently–a lack of response doesn’t mean you should stop pursuing.
• Get out of your head and take action–even in small steps.
• Challenge assumptions about what’s possible or conventional.
• Align your work with your personal values and find the right fit.
• Consider interim/temporary roles as potential paths to something more permanent.
• Embrace lifelong learning as industries and roles evolve.
• Focus on continuous self-improvement, not just securing any job.

More About Stephen Warley

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

Credits

• Hallon by Christian Bjoerklund
• Cold Funk by Kevin MacLeod

All songs licensed under Creative Commons

## Transcript

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

**John:** Today I’m talking to Stephen Warley. Steven and I met on the internet a lot of years ago. It came about as a result of going to the very first Podcast Movement conference and talking to someone at happy hour, and they were asking me what I wanted to do, and I said, I want to help people get unstuck. This is way before I got into coaching or anything, and this lady said, oh yeah, there’s this podcast called Unstuckable. You should listen to it. I was like, really? So I started listening to it, and these 2 guys. It was Steven and I think this other guy named Chris. And they said, hey, we want to know how you’re stuck. We want to hear from you. So write to us. I was like, yeah, whatever. I’ll write to them, but I’ll never hear from them. And Steven wrote back. I think Chris did too. And I don’t know, we became, I don’t know what, friends? And then we’ve met a few times in real life and Steven’s on the East Coast. I’m on the West Coast. So welcome back, Steven.

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

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

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

**John:** Yes.

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

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

**Stephen:** still

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

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

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

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

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

**Stephen:** That’s just not true.

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

**Stephen:** So let’s take a little context. Like 10 years ago, this stuff kind of did work. It was still newish. You know, LinkedIn was only like 5 years old-ish around that time, right? So it’s just like anything, these things work or they have these promises that are delivered upon, but then somewhere along the way with technology just goes off the rails and becomes very unhelpful for what it originally promised. And I think That’s what happened to— has happened to online job postings. Um, you know, you know, using LinkedIn, it’s so overdone. It’s, it’s so flooded that you have to go do something else. And again, me being me, that’s kind of my story of my life. I always like, okay, no one’s over here, so I’ll go over there. And John, you know what nobody does anymore? What? What I did to get my very first job in television, I just talked to people. I just talked to people. I don’t do the digital thing. So I, my very first job in television, I, there was called Bacon’s Media Guide and I wanted to get a job in television and it had all these phone numbers. It was a PR firm. I would never otherwise have access to this. Like you have to think about 1997, having access to something like this was like, Oh, crazy. You know what I mean? These books were— I forgot how much they cost. So I copied down like 5 phone numbers every day. I was working in Times Square and I go to the Marriott Marquis with my roll of quarters at a phone booth. Like, I’m really dating myself, people. And I would call these shows and be like, hey, do you have any entry-level jobs? Blah, blah, blah. And eventually I got a few. They’re like, yes, send me your resume. And then one led to an interview. And then I ended up eventually getting a job at CBS News just because I just called a lot of different television news shows in New York City and eventually something got through.

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

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

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

**Stephen:** I just, I first broke it down into niches, like who would be interested in an economic development, like politicians, the commercial banks, real estate folks, community leaders. So I started, you know, niching them and then kind of doing some Google searches. I would also ask people that I met, who do, who should I know? Because it’s like small town life, might as well like use that to my advantage. So I just simply, I did a very simple email. I emailed all these folks cold again, just like I did in 1999. ’97, but I called back then. I didn’t email. And I said, hey, I’m new to town. I’m really interested in economic development, getting involved. I’d just love to hear your take on the challenges and opportunities around here because you’ve been doing this a long time. And John, most people are like, sure, I’ll talk to you. So I talked to a ton of people. And then what happened, John, a place that everybody told me like there’s no jobs here, there’s no money, people started throwing work at me. A lot of consulting projects. And I was like, okay, I have plenty of work to handle here. What do you mean there’s no money here?

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

**Stephen:** First thing, it’s another mindset thing. You have to get over your fear of actually talking to an actual human being. So that has been what has happened, the screenification of our lives, which I fear for, for younger generations, the pandemic, and everybody has social anxiety now. It seems like that’s— by the way, everybody’s a little afraid of talking to other humans. Okay. Newsflash. You know what I mean? It’s all part of us. So you’re not alone. Uh, so I think that’s that first step. Again, just because it’s easy and you’re doing it a lot, and that’s the thing in your brain when you are applying to lots of jobs on Indeed or LinkedIn or whatever niche website, you have a lot of job listings for your industry. It feels like you’re doing work, right? It does. It’s exhausting being on these screens and filling out all these really complicated forms. They’ve even gotten more complicated. And then it’s really disheartening to find out that most of them are just going to an algorithm now, not even a human being. to decide if you even make it to a human being. So that is what— so the first step I would ask people, like, what you’re doing, is it working? If it’s not, stop it. Because you’re just wasting all of effort. You’re not going to get any response. I mean, I mean, I’ve heard people who are like, I’ve submitted like 100, 200, 500 resumes and nothing’s happening. I, there’s a woman I’ve known for a long time. Um, very talented. And happens to be a graphic designer. Now you have to realize there’s also certain professions that are really starting to change faster than others in terms of the influence of automation and AI. I think graphic designers are one of them. It’s only going to get harder to find a job just by applying for the one for a graphic designer. And she was doing that, you know, here’s everything I’m doing. I think you got to go talk to people like find companies or a niche that you’re interested in. She settled into a niche that she liked and she started making her list. of like, who is, you know, who is the person who’s going to hire a graphic designer? You know, it’s usually somebody in the marketing department at a university. So making up a list, reaching out, asking her network, do you know anybody who’s marketing related to marketing at a university or anybody who even works at a university just to get me in so I could talk to somebody? So this is like the good old-fashioned networking that we have to do. And so step 1 is get over Trying to just avoid humans and stay in the safety of applying for jobs online. It’s not working. You know it. I know it. We’re talking about it. This is why John had me here. So step two is you’re gonna have to talk to people again. So where where are these people and who do you want to talk to? And the first thing, John, I always tell people: We often overlook the people that we already know. And if you’re listening to us right now, you know I want you to scan your phone. I want you to scan your email. I want to scan your social media channels, and I want. I want you to find— think of as you’re looking, your eyeballs are scanning through these names. If you have a really strong feeling like, oh yeah, that person, I can’t believe I forgot about them. They know somebody that could introduce me to somebody, or they’re in the industry. Just make that list and have that strong feeling. And you’re probably gonna come up with like more names than you, you, you realize. Uh, and you’re gonna start reaching out to each one of those people. And the next step, which is really hard for us, John, is just be honest where you’re at. Be like, this is just what happened. This is what I want to do. I was wondering if you could think of somebody that I might be able to talk to, or even more direct, do you have any openings, um, in your business? Like, be honest, you know what I mean? That saves you so time. In fact, John, my email that’s going out tomorrow is about the greatest time saver I have ever discovered, and it’s being honest with yourself.

**John:** Amazing.

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

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

**Stephen:** Right? No results.

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

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

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

**Stephen:** right? Blah blah blah. I’ve heard all about the excuses you’ve got. You can find the challenges. Like, I have to go find people to talk to, and it might be even messy. It might even not even be quote unquote the right person, the best person, or the perfect person, because this is a journey. You know, John, people when they get a job, they secretly are they’re really excited about it, right? But they’re also privately really relieved because they don’t have to look for a job right now, right? They got it. They don’t have to figure that out. You’re listening to a person who is constantly looking for work because I’ve been working for myself for 24 years. And I’m so glad that I have that ability because I’m always in this position. I’m always looking for new clients, new work. It never ended. I have this skill that I’m always sharpening. And work is changing so quickly right now. All of us are going to have to find a job or manage our careers like this. Even if you want to be an employee and you like that structure, and we need you. But you’re still gonna have to think like an entrepreneur in terms of constantly building your network. Even when you get that job and you feel like, woo, it’s safe. Alright, settle in for a few months, but then after that, you should be out there finding people to meet again. So that way, when you do get laid off or the rug is pulled out from under you, or you, you’re the boss that you love decides to leave, and then you have a nightmare boss that replaces them and you, you’re hating life, you have a network to fall back on. And that’s why, John, so many people. are in this position that they only can apply to jobs because they let their network, their connections totally atrophy. You know, they, and then, and then when you’re really desperate and you need a job, then you feel weird about calling these people because they haven’t heard from you in 2 years. Now you’re just calling them because you need a job.

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

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

**John:** yeah,

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

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

**Stephen:** And I think you’re giving a nice example. Again, it’s all about the mindset. You know, I know all this technology stuff, everybody thinks it’s like, it’s the magic pill that’s going to save our life, right? I love the original technology of our brain. And the first thing you have to do is like about that fear of reaching out to people, or you’re like, okay, Stephen, you know, I made that list you’re talking about, but now what do I say? And I’m like, just be a person. Just be curious. And it’s gonna be a little different for everybody. Like, hey, I see Jane over there. Oh, you know what I wanna ask her? I, last time I talked to her, she was like, uh, had a 2-year-old. I wonder like what ha— what’s happening with her kid. Whatever, you know what I mean? It just like, just be curious. Don’t like— that’s the huge, uh, thing. Just be honest about where you’re at, but also be curious. And you want to know like where they’re at, you know, make it a conversation. So I think a lot of times we don’t like this sort of reach out, John, because we feel like we’re at a, in a lesser place, a lower place, because I’m like, ooh, I don’t have it all figured out right now. And I’m asking for something. I’m groveling. It doesn’t have to be like that. You can approach these conversations as equals. You’re a human, they’re a human. And I’m sure there’d be a lot of these folks would be just psyched to hear from you again.

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

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

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

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

**John:** Totally.

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

**John:** Or a text.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

**Stephen:** And, and I, I, you know, John, you’ve listened to him and you’re, I hope you’re getting a little know about me. Like, John and I know, like, you’re in a vulnerable place. You’re in a place not everybody likes to feel like. We get it. But you could dwell and get sucked into that vulnerable place and kind of take it, go into a negative direction with it, or be like, you know what? The universe or whatever you believe in has decided that I’m opening up a new chapter in my life, and I want to put my best face forward here and take the next step and like look at it as an adventure. Try to enjoy it. You know, we’ve all—I mean, you’ve been around the block. Like I’m pushing fifty here. I’ve seen enough ups and downs in my life to know, like in the grand scheme of things, things generally keep moving in a pretty okay place. Sure, I’ve had some like rough times in my life, but I also. Those times, they were not pleasant going through them as you’re going through them, but you end up learning things about yourself, about humans, and just about how you want to proceed in life. You almost like to get better at life. You have to go through rough patches. There’s just no way around it.

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

**Stephen:** No, yeah, doing, getting— it’s getting out of your head. There’s no way to get in your head is what you just said, doing, taking action. You have to be in the external world here, right? Another quick mindset trick Is to break it down to a lot of times people will say, oh, people say I got to reach out to 5 people every day. And I’m like, I got to go find them. I got to get their emails. Then I got to find out what I’m going to write to them. Then I got to send it, right? You get so in your head, like you’re taking hours on end. Another approach here is realize like that involves a lot of tasks. Like step 1 is like, who do I want to talk to? Like brainstorm different types of people. Step 2, how am I going to find their contact information? Like these could be 2 separate days. Step 3, it could be like, what’s like 75% of the email that I’m going to send to every single one of them? So let me write that. And then step 4, I’m going to start sending out these emails. And then step 5, I’m going to track this. I love spreadsheets. They’re free, ubiquitous. Even after all these years, they are solid, man. And I put it— it’s very satisfying to like, ooh, look at all these different people that I am I’ve, I want to talk to, or I found emails for. I’m filling the blanks. I’m always doing something. So you might be in a headspace like writing for some people takes a little bit more energy, a little bit more mental capacity rather than just sitting and be like, hey, who could I talk to? You know? So you might, in whatever energetic place they’re in, you’re always kind of getting something done. And I’m also a huge advocate of like, whatever you need to make it a little more fun and enjoyable, do it. I don’t care how crazy you think it is or how harder judging yourself that I can’t believe I need this. Do other— are other people like this? Like I tell myself some days, like I gotta get stuff done and I’m like, how am I gonna get this done? I’m like, for whatever reason, my mom growing up would always do arts and crafts with us. So I’m like, how could I make this feel like arts and crafts right now? And sometimes it means like instead of being at my desk and having good posture, my feet flat on the floor, I go down to my nice comfy leather couch and I get a cup of tea and I have my blanket on me and I get really comfortable. I’m like, Ooh, this feels good. And you know what? Then I’m really excited about doing that thing that seemed impossible trying to do my home office for some reason.

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

**Stephen:** Mm-hmm.

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

**Stephen:** I like it. It’s, I would call this intentional stillness or stopping. Like you were just saying before, you got to take action. You got to do something. You got to move. Right. But it’s not about— because it’s— I’d rather have somebody do what you did. I’d rather have them say like, I’m going to carve out time on my day for this, even if it means if I’m just sitting there thinking about— I’m intentionally holding 30 minutes of space for this instead of like going and doom scrolling on social media or going checking a YouTube video or doing something that’s so unproductive. And a lot of times, even to, like I said, breaking it down into all those different actions, I would often rather people— I’d rather see people say like, I’d like to see you spend a quality hour. On your job search every day, each day. And it could be a little different. Like one day you’re just like brainstorming people, another day it’s like you’re drafting copy, another day you’re going to send out some emails, but you are intentionally spending an hour each day. And then I also like to— people have a quick meeting with yourself at the end of the week just so you can actually see everything that you did do and how it all moved forward because you kept that habit, you kept that intention, and something kept getting done every day.

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

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

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

**Stephen:** Yes.

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

**Stephen:** We’ve been talking about kind of like I said, like, I think people really get stuck on like, who am I going to contact? If I, if I, if I like, if you banned yourself from submitting to, uh, for job listings for like 2 weeks, you’re like, that’s not an option. What would you do? Right? Like that is not an option. So you’ll, you know, like I said, to kind of scan your social channels, your email, your phone for people to talk to. The other habit I want you to get into as you start talking to these people that you already know, ask them for one recommendation. Is there at the end of the call, the interaction, is there one person you could recommend that I could talk to and be specific? Allow their brain to scan their, their, their brain to be able to scan for this person. Don’t be like, if you think of anyone, Don’t do that. Then people never have a recommendation. But like, do you know somebody who does this? Or I could learn from this, or I could talk to you about that. You know what, as a matter of fact, I do. Can you do an email introduction? That would be great. So if you get in the habit of always closing out these conversations with an ask of like, who’s one more person I could meet? You’re slowly going to organically build your network. I’m always doing this. I know John’s always doing this. So that way people are always kind of coming to you and it’s like, I have to say, it’s At different times when I’m starting things, I kind of use this process, but once it gets going, I don’t even realize it. I call this outreach. I’m just doing outreach all the time. It no longer becomes like a task, a burden, a to-do list. It’s something I’m always doing.

**John:** I thought you said something interesting. You said at least an hour. I’ve talked to people that are the opposite extreme. They’re like, I spent 6— they’re trying to sit down and spend, you know, their, their equivalent previous workday of 8 hours or whatever, grinding it out. And it’s— I don’t know about what you think about that, but that just is death. Like,

**Stephen:** I want to be like, John, are you setting me up because you really want me to go nuts right now? Because you know how I feel about this. It’s— let me just get this out of the way. It’s absolutely— if you haven’t heard this before, I’m giving you permission right now. You don’t need my permission, but the whole 8-hour workday or any predetermined time that you’re being valued on your time for your work is Absolutely ridiculous in the context for what most of us do now. It’s ridiculous. Who cares? Like I always tell consulting clients, like you’re not judging me in the hours; you’re judging me on the value of what I’m giving you. I’m saving you time, saving you money, I’m saving you frustration. That is what you’re paying for. Who cares how long it’s taken me to do it? And the same thing with your job search. You’re you’re right. And and also let’s give folks a little bit of grace because I remember when I first got laid off ages ago. I felt like I had to work an 8-hour day until I was like, but I keep getting all my work done like in 3 hours. And it kind of like, oh, right, I don’t have to fill up a day to like prove to my bosses that I’m a hard worker. You know, I’m getting what needs to get done done. So it’s a reward now. So I get to go do other stuff. And I’ve learned, you know, we always talk about productivity in America. That’s a load of baloney. Like, employees aren’t productive. If you want productive employees, you will not trap them in an 8-hour workday. You will let them work however they want to work. They know what they need to get done. They’re adults. Supposedly you hired them. You should trust them. If you don’t, fire them and get it done. So I think you’re going to burn yourself out and get really disillusioned if you approach your job search like it’s a— like it’s the traditional job again.

**John:** It’s a replacement job. Your replacement job is finding a new one.

**Stephen:** Yeah, it’s still work. It’s still effort. You should be treating it with a high degree of intention. But I think I’d rather see a quality hour every day and that you’re enjoying it, you’re going to start to see the results that you’re going to start to see even in your own work. And I think a lot of us have the experience now of working remotely, that’s what I had. You’re like, wow, I’m kind of getting my job done a lot faster than I did when I was stuck in an office.

**John:** Also, I would challenge too, maybe it’s not a solid hour in a row, maybe it’s 2 30-minute blocks, and to start small. If you can’t If sitting for 30 minutes is torture, do 15. Do 2 15s. I’ve done this with projects. I just, for whatever reason, do not want to do this, cannot do this. It’s like, okay, well, I’ll do 15 minutes and then I’ll do another 15 minutes. And what will happen is if you— it’s like building a muscle. It’s like going to the gym for the first time. You lift the little 1-pound dumbbell and you’re like, I can’t do this. And then you’re like, oh, I can do this. Let me try 3. Let me try 5. Same with this. Do 15 minutes. Oh, okay. That’s pretty good. Or 30 minutes. And then it’s like, you’ll get on a roll accidentally and then you’ll sit there longer and then you’ll be like, oh, that was pretty cool. I just did an hour and a half without even trying. The next day, oh man, I’m pushing a rock up a hill again. So what? I’ll do 30 minutes. Then I’ll take a break.

**Stephen:** I remember who once said it. Her first name’s Martha. Is it Martha Beck? I can’t remember. She always advocated for breaking things down into embarrassingly small tasks.

**John:** Yes. Yes. Why not?

**Stephen:** Which I love. Like she would say, like, like what you’re describing, she said like her first, her first task would be, um, open your laptop.

**John:** Yeah. Success.

**Stephen:** Done. Um, now turn it on, you know, and it is sometimes your brain just needs that little, it’s like cranking the window.

**John:** Yeah.

**Stephen:** You know, just like getting going. Depending on when you just lost your job, if it is possible, if you’re not, if you do have a little bit of a financial runway, I know too many people don’t, but I also tell people, depending on, especially if you’ve been at it for a while, if you’ve been at your, this career for like 10, 15, maybe 20 years and this happened to you, it might be this big reflection time. You might be actually going through something else in life. You’re like, I think I might wanna work differently or do something else. So actually, if you can give yourself, uh, a few weeks just to, to have some space because you’ve been on this grind of a path for so long, but don’t just sit around. Yeah. Do something that you’ve said, I’ve always wanted to do this, but I never had the time. Well, now you have the time because back to John, what he mentioned earlier, it’s about movement. And another one of my quirky things that I’m a big advocate for is the back office brain. And what I mean by that is like we’re always thinking our conscious mind is going to figure everything out for us and we’re just going to think harder. We’re going to furrow our brows and certainly I’m going to get an answer. But John and I know that’s not true. So if you could go for a walk or go Read some book you’ve been up, you’ve been wanting to read. You haven’t had the time, or spend more time with your kids, or you want to garden, and actually enjoy it. Like that’s the work. You will. You come back two weeks later. All of a sudden, you’re like, “Oh wow! I actually have a lot of ideas about how I want to approach this this job search, starting a business, whatever the heck it is that you want to do.” Because there’s other parts of your brain that’s actually working on it. You just have to trust it and have faith in it. That a lot of times when I’m really stuck on something, John, I recognize it now instead of like forcing myself to like. you know, tackle it for 2 hours. And I’m like, I’m sending it to my back office brain. And then the next day when I’m waking up, usually it’s in the morning for me, I look in the inbox, my back office brain has some work there, and it’s like, oh, why don’t you try this? Why don’t you try that? I’m like, alright. It is like magic. I don’t know why. Like, they should be teaching kindergartners this stuff.

**John:** Well, I think what you’re also speaking to when you say the next morning, and I’ve done this with people as well, is create a little heat map of the day. Know your best energy. So as I continue to age—

**Stephen:** No, that’s not happening.

**John:** But after dinner, after like 6, 7 o’clock at night, there is nothing left on a lot of days. There is just no cognitive, creative. And I used to make that a problem. And then I realized, well, okay, it’s not that way anymore. So It is in the morning. So how can you time shift this? How can you make sure that in the morning you’re not doom scrolling and reading the news and all this other stuff that doesn’t really help you, and you’re using that time to be creative? So figuring those times out.

**Stephen:** I love that you said this. My sister called me last night at like 10 of 8, and it was the simplest—

**John:** You were already in bed? Well,

**Stephen:** I was watching this webinar. There’s like this new train that might be coming to like our part of the state, and I’m like, you know, I want to check this out. But I was tired. I was so engrossed in it, and it was the simplest of questions. And I said to her, I said, my brain’s just not there right now. I’ll talk to you tomorrow morning. But that’s how I’ve been too. I was never in college. I never pulled all-nighters and all that sort of thing. I was always like, I am done at 7 o’clock at night. You know what I mean? I’m toast. So I, I call it your peak performance period. Again, we’ve been diluted because of the 8-hour workday. From my research, I was a history major. I read like tons of biographies. I— one of my questions I always ask entrepreneurs— I’ve interviewed over 500 of them, 500 of them between 2 podcasts— and most people only have 3 to 4 hours a day to do really good mental work. That’s it. So find out when it is for you and make the best use of it. And like, when it’s gone, get back at it tomorrow, or do a lower energy task. You know, stuff always has to get done. But—

**John:** And don’t hear that as like, oh well, I just got laid off, I need to spend 4 hours a day because Steven said that that’s how much I have. Exactly.

**Stephen:** I’d rather you go do something fun.

**John:** Go watch a movie. Go do something.

**Stephen:** Get away from the screens.

**John:** Okay, so people have made a list. They’re reaching out to people.

**Stephen:** They’ve made a list of people they know. Can I take that a little bit? Because it’s like, people you know, start there and then get in that habit as you get to talk to people, you’re asking for recommendations. So,

**John:** so there’s no filter. There’s no filter or rules in the beginning. It’s just like, oh, who’s in my phone? Oh, that person’s interesting. I love talking to them.

**Stephen:** Yeah. Allow your inner voice or like that back office brain to be excited about. Listen for that to be like, they— that part of your brain knows that you should talk to that person. Don’t even question it. Just talk to that person.

**John:** Okay.

**Stephen:** And be excited about it. And the next thing I would do is starting to think about like, what are your interests? What are you excited about? Kind of your values. And start thinking about, well, are there people or businesses or organizations that kind of reflect that, you know, and can I start reaching out to them? I always have people do this, like even if they do not have any job openings on their website, I still want you to reach out to them. Just be like, I love what you do. I always have. And this is my area of expertise. And here’s a few ideas I had for you. If you ever want to talk, let me know. And so I think that also starts to help you understand that you have a lot more agency over where you work and how you work because we’re never taught that. We’re never taught to go find a job based on our values, what we’re interested in, and how can we apply whatever hard skill set that we’ve learned to that. We’re always just like, whatever hard skill set, whoever will take me. Drives me nuts when people tell me I’m just lucky enough to have a job. And I say, I’m like, you think that little of yourself? You deserve better than that. You’re not just lucky enough to have a job.

**John:** It pays really well, but you know, you can’t have it all.

**Stephen:** But my soul is simultaneously dying at the same time.

**John:** Yeah.

**Stephen:** So a big part of my work is like making your work work for you. And I think I, when people, John, when people lose their job and they get fired, I, I never, you know, everybody else does. They’re like, oh, I’m so sorry. I never say that. I say congratulations on your liberation. And they don’t know always how to take it, but I say it with such effervescence that I think that they know that I’m not being a jerk and that somehow they’re like, huh? I’m like, why did you say that? You know? And I’m like, here’s why, you know, you’ve been given an opportunity to like look at this thing so differently. So if that’s just happened to you, congratulations on your liberation.

**John:** So we’ve got lists, reaching out to people, reaching out different ways.

**Stephen:** What am I gonna say to them? This is always the classic. So the— what you’re going to say that I want you to just— I did share kind of the CliffsNotes on this earlier, but let’s dig into this a little bit. You feel like you’re asking them for something. Get over that. Remember, you want to lead with curiosity. You’re interested. You want to see how they’re doing. You’re having this space now to like reach out to these people that you just haven’t had time to do in a while because you’ve been so busy at work. So that’s the thing. Just be curious, be interested. Number 2, be honest. Like to say, this is where I’m at. Hey, I just got laid off. This is what happened. I’m not quite sure what I want to do next, but you know, you’re somebody that popped into mind. I just want to see how you’re doing and I just, just wanted to see if you had time to chat. So I think those are the 2 most important things. Lead with curiosity and just be honest with your app, because I think a lot of times we feel like we have to tell the story or people are going to judge us or we have to say certain things. Like, if you feel that way, like, that’s exactly the person you should not be reaching out to right now. That’s a filter. Like, do not even— oh, but I think they work at this company, they know all these important people, and I know they’d have a lot of money. Is it worth it? Is it worth you not being yourself?

**John:** No. And start easy. Put that one at the bottom of the list. The way I like to think of this too is when you’re going to meet someone for dinner that you haven’t seen in a while, or a friend, you’re not driving to dinner being like, oh no, what are we going to talk about? I don’t know how to do this. Like, you’re just kind of naturally curious. There’s not that pressure there. So Is it different if it’s someone that you don’t know that well that maybe has been introduced to you? Yes. And if you’re approaching that conversation with like, what if we were just sitting down to coffee and we’re just going to talk for 30 minutes? It’s not a big deal. There’s nothing at stake here. But what I want to ask them—

**Stephen:** I want to offer an apology because I can’t believe I haven’t said this sooner, because I’m really on a soapbox about this one now, John.

**John:** I knew you’d get— that’s why I knew this would be so good.

**Stephen:** I mean, Here we’ve been doing it. You’ve been doing it. I’ve been doing it. We keep kind of guiding people like you’re all on your own doing this, that you should be thinking about this all by yourself. No, humans evolved to work together.

**John:** Mm-hmm.

**Stephen:** You should find other people who are in your similar situation or some good friends that you’ve, in a fun way, in a way that feels good to you, where you have this regular check-in, whether it’s in person, it’s on the phone, it’s on a Zoom call that you could be just sharing, like, how’d your week go? What are you, what are you learning about? That’s the other cool thing about this. process, you’re gonna learn about yourself. And what do you learn about yourself? Totally. Do not go this alone. That is the other enormous myth that needs to end in career management in the Western world is stop thinking that it’s all on your shoulders. It’s all your fault. You, it’s, you are the one who let this happen. You need community. And those people also want to see you succeed. They also are gonna give you different insights and perspectives that you’re just not gonna think about all on your own. And to John’s point, this is another kind of movement action. It’s getting you out of your head. It’s about seeing what other people are going through. And even sometimes it’s, oh, just the way that this person said it just got me thinking. You need that. You need that fodder. You need these different perspectives, these different insights.

**John:** Another something along those same lines that popped in my head too was I’ve also encouraged previous clients to volunteer.

**Stephen:** Yes.

**John:** There’s a— I’ll put it in the notes. I think it’s called Volunteer America or something. It’s basically volunteer operated. It’s a volunteer database by city, by location. And I found just by, I don’t know, I did like a 2-minute search and I found a whole bunch of things that fit their interests and they went and did some volunteering. And it was a way to fill, not to like fill time, but it was a way to like get out of their routine. It forced them to get out of the house. They love meeting new people. It was in an area of town that they were interested in. I don’t know if it led to a job, but it was something to do and it was a way to meet new people and just essentially get out of their heads too.

**Stephen:** Yes. Yes. Like that is, I always, I always remind people when you are helping other people and you’re focused on their challenge or problem, you are not focused on your challenge or problem. And you’re actually, and your back office brain is like, thank God they’re focused on this over here so I can finally do the real work that needs to be done over here. And your brain can actually start getting some clarity and do stuff. And after you’ve had your volunteer time, you come back home after a few hours, you’re like, huh, I got some new perspective on this. I got some new insight just because you were so focused on somebody else and not yourself. It sounds so counterintuitive, but you, especially if you’ve been out of work for a while, it’s something you need. And simultaneously, if you’ve been out of work for a while, I think it’s not a bad idea to start volunteering and using your skills again. So that way, as you’re out in the world, there is something, there’s some, you’ve heard this old adage and I have to say there might be still something to this old adage. Like it’s easier to find a job when you have a job. And to like expand on this conversation, I think it’s easier to find a job when you’re still upping your skills and you’re still improving. You’re still meeting new people. People just feel that energy. You just don’t seem as desperate. You just, you’re just kind of like, and you also were confident. You’re kind of coming at your level. You’re, you feel like you’re not jobless anymore. You’re working on these different projects. You’re using your skill. You’re learning new things. And that comes up in the interview and people can kind of sense that excitement. That passion, or that you’re some— that you’re that kind of a person who’s still trying to better themselves. You’re not waiting around for somebody just to employ them.

**John:** And totally along those lines, a few years ago I encouraged someone— I think they were interested in data analytics or something, and they had met someone that was in that field. And I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but I challenged— I said, why don’t you just find some way to serve them? I really like this idea of volunteering, but there’s something about this word service, which is— and it’s not necessarily like serve to get, it’s just serve to serve. So it’s like, oh well, they have this problem with all this data. What if you just solved some of it for them and just showed them what was possible? Like, what if you just saw— like, you’re not doing anything in it. You have this time. You have the time, so why not use some of it to activate your brain to solve a problem that they have and just share it with them? Just say, hey, what do you think of this? They did that. It led to— I think it led to part-time work, and then eventually they found full-time work, and then someone else picked up what they were doing and did it full-time for a while. So yes, there’s— you don’t know where it’s going to lead, just helping someone with something that you’re able to help them with.

**Stephen:** And also, you challenge yourself. You might not have always been opposed to consulting, you know, maybe be a little bit more open to that. So it’s kind of like you’re testing out the waters and you’re getting paid while you’re doing it. So maybe it can lead to something. Maybe you’re inside and then you see what the full-time opportunities are, or you’re like, ooh, I’m glad this is a consulting project. It’s going to wrap in 2 weeks because I definitely don’t want to work with this place. You

**John:** know?

**Stephen:** Totally. I mean, I think that’s like a longer-term thing that needs to change in work. We have to figure out a better— the only way you’re ever going to really know if you like working there or if they like Like you working there is like you got to do work. You know, there’s no—it’s terrible. Like the amount of interview hijinks and hoops that people are being made to go through. I mean, it’s like becoming like a job. It’s like pay me to go through this process. You know, I mean, I did one of these just to experiment to see what people go through. It was—I think it was like six years ago. It was one of those like coding academies, and they’re looking for coaches. I mean, I had to do like a group interview, two rounds of single interviews. I had to like do a. a couple— I’d do a class, you know, like a faux class to see how I had to like pretend I was coaching somebody one-on-one, you know. And then, um, I was living a distance, uh, from this particular opportunity at the time. And I— and they, they say, so what do you think? And I said, well, I’m not excited about the 40-minute commute each way. So that was my back office brain saving me because the job could have been easily done anywhere in the world. But crazy, they have to have you be in the same geographic location.

**John:** Didn’t work for you. What are some unconventional—

**Stephen:** You haven’t got enough unconventional advice out of me yet.

**John:** Well, there’s got to be more. No. Well, no, I love, I love, I love stuff that’s like in plain sight or so obvious, but people are like, well, that would never work. Uh, oh, I never thought of that. Oh, it’s right in front of me. I could do that. Like, are there any other

**Stephen:** Another thing, just with consulting, um, you might see an opportunity where like, boy, I’m really excited about this, but the pay is not what I want. Well, go through the process and then pitch yourself as a consultant. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten consulting gigs doing that. Um, you know, I

**John:** mean, say more about the mechanics of that.

**Stephen:** Well, I just did it recently. Uh, the city where I live, very small city, and, um, just doesn’t have the funds. It’s a very small city to be able to hire me with the skill sets that I have of what I expect to be paid, of what, what my value is. And so like, hey, I want to help this place, but I see this more as a consulting opportunity for the amount of money that you have. And they’re still going to get a ton of value out of what it is I’m doing. And they said, okay, you know, and so sometimes you just, you know, it’s about— I think the other exercise we need to go through here, every, everyone listening and, and John, Is people are atrocious at understanding and then explaining their worth. We always think that we just have to take whatever we can get. It’s back to like I’m just so lucky enough to have a job. We when we always letting the corporations and the companies and the big bosses, everybody else decide how much money you’re going to be make. No, please. If there’s one thing you take away from this interview, like you decide. How much money you are going to make and what you need to live your life. You know, not just take what you’re given.

**John:** But you don’t understand, I have to feed my family, Stephen.

**Stephen:** Yes, and they need more money. Um, I think, I think what it does when you start understanding your value and being able to explain it to people, what it does, John, you start seeing other options. Because right now people have like super blinders on, a very narrow view of what they think available work is. And it’s still surprising, even 2024 blows my mind how vast majority of the American population still thinks traditional employment is the only way that they can make income. So when you start really trying to understand why do people want to hire me, you have to— when a corporation is hiring you, they are like, they’re making a profit off of you, right? So when you become a consultant, you know, all of that money comes back. Yes, you’re gonna have to pay taxes, and there’s healthcare, and there’s Plus, I’m not—don’t get me wrong—but they are making a profit margin off of you. So you can make a lot more money being out in in in the world as a consultant. So it’s so important to go through this process in this journey if you’re looking for a job to really understand like what do I want to be paid and why? Like I, by the way, I have a lifestyle calculator if everybody wants to download it for free. Lifeskills that matter dot com slash calculator because everybody’s always chasing after money or what the core person says that you should get paid. I said, what if we what if we like calculate this? Like how much? How much does my lifestyle cost in a year? And let’s work backwards from that. Like nobody tells you that’s possible because John, I think most people really don’t give a crap about becoming a millionaire. I really don’t. I think most people are just like, cool, this is what I need. And this is how I’m gonna live. Okay. Now I know. And so you kind of work backwards from that. So understanding what you value and how other people are valuing your skills, um, back to what I said, like how maybe graphic design in certain circumstances is becoming less valuable now. Right. But now you see a lot of people talking about the There’s like basically copy editing for AI that’s becoming more valuable. So just, you have to kind of be aware in the marketplace or, or how people perceive you of what is valuable or not valuable, or just even how you present yourself. Again, I, I usually end up getting a lot of opportunities in life because I go ask. Like most people are afraid, like we’ve been talking for almost an hour now. People are just afraid to ask for what they want. Like I’m not. And then I, and it’s about, it’s a yes/no ratio thing. Like I always tell people I have the same yes/no ratio as you. I just ask a lot more. So that’s why it seems like I’m getting a lot more, but it’s just like I ask more. So I think, um, back to like, yeah, you have a family and I, by the way, I’ve interviewed tons of people who have families and it’s interesting. A lot of people actually start a business when they have their first born, which has blew my mind. Usually when people go through some sort of crisis situation, healthcare, financial, or a positive thing like having a baby is when they decide to really upend their life and restructure it of how it’s gonna work for them. Yeah. Yeah. So I hear you that you have mouths to feed, but I think the more you can dig into like how you value yourself, you’re going to start to see more options or be more open to more options that maybe you can get a full-time job, but maybe you’ll have something on the side that’s only going to take you a couple of hours a week, but it’s a consulting opportunity. Or we’re seeing that now how people are actually doing 2 or 3 high-paying jobs because they’re using technology to make that job that much more efficient so that they can do 2 jobs jobs in one workday now, you know. Um, not all corporations like that this is happening, but hey, more power to people for trying that out there. Or you might go through a big season of, of wanting to make a lot of money, but you’re gonna save it. Like I always tell people, I’ve always lived at a certain dollar amount, and then when I’ve made a lot, I’ve sucked it into savings accounts and investments and real estate. So that way, I, I think a lot of times people get very addicted. It’s very common as your salary goes up, so do your lifestyle costs. And that’s why you really wanna understand how much money do you really need to live your ideal life? lifestyle, or what are the things that you’re willing to compromise on or, um, spend more money on or spend less money on? So that way you’re in like this, this range through the course of your life of like, that’s what you need. So you don’t get addicted to more money.

**John:** No. When it comes back, I do this with people too, coming back to what is true. I’ll ask people, I say, do you, you don’t have to tell me the number, but do you know how much it costs you to live every month? Most people I talk to say maybe slash no.

**Stephen:** No, they have no idea how much money they even spent last month. That’s what I always tell people, like, how much money did you make last year? They’re always so proud to tell me.

**John:** Oh yeah, no, everyone knows that number.

**Stephen:** I’m like, how much money did you spend last year? They’re like, I don’t know.

**John:** Yeah, there’s less money. Yeah, so, but knowing, yes, whether you’re employed or not, knowing what that number is, is power. Knowing that number is— it changes the game because it’s like, well, that’s how much I need a month. This job doesn’t pay as much as I think it should, and it will meet my— I can still meet my needs. Okay, do I want to take this job because it’s going to give me the experience, or do I want to pass on it and look for something else? But at least now you know. Same people, people talk to me about going out on their own. I’m like, well, how much does it cost you to live every month? How much money do you have in the bank? It’s become— some of this just becomes a math problem.

**Stephen:** One thing I want to caveat, I want to see, because it happens out there especially. I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it too. Sometimes there’s a lot of this talk going on, which is great, but sometimes, uh, people take it a teeny bit too far that they’ve overestimated and overvalued their skills. They’re asking for way too much for where they’re at. Mm-hmm. And then they’re like, how come I’m not getting hired? How come nobody’s looking at me? Because you’re, there’s such a gap, you know, there’s such, there’s like, it’s, you’re not completely being truthful or you haven’t really done your homework about exactly how much your current skill set at your experience level is truly valued. So that is something I want people to be aware of too, because there’s, there’s people who overvalue, there’s people who undervalue. I’d say people, most people undervalue their worth and their skills, but that is something to keep an eye on. I think, um, when you really, I found back to like getting the, the, the work that you really want where you’re getting paid what you want and you’re doing how you want to do it. And, um, it’s very satisfying. It’s purposeful. That requires back to what we’ve been talking about today. It’s about reaching out to actual humans, to companies and entities that share your values and they appreciate your work skills. It’s also about sharing your work, you know, having a portfolio, no matter what your profession is there, you should have some mechanism by which you are sharing what it is that you’re doing and that you’re continually trying to improve your skills. And people see that because people like— I’m in an area where you know, there’s a work culture where people are, you know, I’m out in kind of a more of a natural area and people, uh, their work ethic is a little just different, shall we say. And I think I get a lot of opportunities because they’re like, oh my gosh, he actually gets it done. Like he says what he means. And people, you can’t fake that. And people will see that. So if you can, you, if you know in your heart of hearts, like you are a super competent person, that is a huge advantage. I think so many times the super competent people don’t even realize how valuable they are. that like employers are— will crawl over nails to find you because there are so many people who just aren’t competent or they just don’t care. They don’t care about doing a good job or improving.

**John:** I think that’s the title for this episode, Crawling Over Nails to Be Found.

**Stephen:** Ask employers, they will. They will have that. I mean, there’s so many— like there’s this skills gap, right? There’s so many job openings, but then And there’s so, and there’s so many people looking for jobs, but yet we continue to have this problem. And there’s a lot of ingredients for why that’s happening. But I think one is, uh, you know, it is improving your skills and putting in that effort and you have to do it for yourself. Don’t, don’t, you don’t have to do it for this corporation. You don’t have to fall into a trap. I think the mechanisms of like, when you know how much money you really wanna make, you understand your values, you understand the time and energy of how you would like to be getting better at something. That’s kind of how you hack capitalism. I know a lot of people like to be really down on the system, but I don’t see it changing anytime soon. So, so in a weird way, figure out how to make it work for you, right? The corporations have found out how to make it work for them forever, right? So like now we get a chance to figure out how to make it work for us. And I do naively believe it is possible. Is it harder for certain groups of people than others? Yes. That’s part of my work. I want to make it easier and more accessible for more people because it absolutely should be. It’s ridiculous. But, um, yeah, let me just do a quick recap. You’re looking for a job. Um, get out of your head. As John said, go move, take action in a way that makes sense for your energy level throughout the day. Go talk to humans, be interested, be curious. Check in with your values. You get given this opportunity. What do you want to do next? What do you want to improve? And reach out to these folks, follow up with them. Be sure to ask for introductions, you know, one person from every interaction that you have, and try to understand your value so that we can start to see more options and challenge your assumptions about what— like I always tell people, I never thought it would work for myself. I never thought I would do sales. Funny story, I ended up starting a sales training business and it did. did really well, and I sold it. So what stories are you telling yourself that you need to challenge yourself?

**John:** Yes, 100%.

**Stephen:** Thank you, John.

**John:** Thank you. So where can people find you if they want to— I don’t know, are you doing conversations with people? What, what do you have? I have communities now.

**Stephen:** It’s back to like, don’t go it alone. I have a career clarity community of practice. So

**John:** what’s it called?

**Stephen:** Um, if you can go to lifeskillsatmerritt.com/community and it’s called Career Clarity Community of Practice.

**John:** Okay.

**Stephen:** So I also have a community of practice for anybody interested in doing kind of a solopreneur type business, community of practice for anybody interested in improving their self-management and one for outreach. And that’s the one nobody asks for, but everybody needs. So again, it’s about practicing and learning these skills, these life skills. That’s what I learned as I was teaching people about business. I’m like, gosh, they’re not getting it. I’m like, oh, because they They’ve— they don’t really understand basic life skills of self-awareness, curiosity, and connection. And as work keeps changing faster and faster, those are those timeless skills that we all need. We were never taught them in our traditional education system because they can’t easily be measured. They can’t be graded very easily. And the only way to get good at them is you have to practice them with other humans so you can challenge each other. You can see patterns and trends in each other, and that’s how you get better at these skills. You can’t just take a standardized test on self-awareness. It just doesn’t work.

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