Okay. So you're in for a real treat today. I just had the most amazing conversation. And the reason I can tell is because my whole body reacts to when a conversation really resonates with me. I'm buzzed. I took a ton of notes and God do I have some introvert life hacks for you. Now, who am I talking about?

Today, I got to sit down with Kristin Zawo. I have been following Kristin on Instagram for a long time. She's a career coach, keynote speaker, and the bestselling author of Job Joy, your guide to success, meaning, and happiness in your career. What I love about Kristin is that whatever she teaches, she's done before.

She really walks the talk. Before launching her coaching practice. She spent nearly two decades in traditional corporate jobs, including investment banking, financial consulting, and marketing. Kristen takes us through some super clear and actionable steps to uncover what career success and job joy means to you and shows us the ropes for how we make that a reality.

We talk about. Different seasons of life and how our careers get to change and adapt to who we are at each stage. Now, without further ado, you can feel my excitement, grab pen and paper, you're gonna need it. And let's dive into the episode. All right, Kristen, thank you for joining me today and welcome to the Awfully Quiet Podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so excited to have you, Kristen. I am obviously following you for quite some time and I'm perceiving most of your content online. But what I find really impressive is that you started out as a corporate girl and you started out in, as a corporate career, you obviously, work with clients nowadays as a career coach, but.

I'm really, really interested to understand from your point of view, where you're coming from, where your career has started and how you have made the pivot into, coaching, careers today and helping other people, you know, achieve fulfillment in their careers too. Let's start there.

Yeah, okay. That's a big question. We could talk the whole time about that. but how I got into coaching, I mean, even when I think back to when I was a kid, I was always the 1 giving advice when I was in college. I, I taught for my job instead of getting an internship in my field. then when I was, I had regular jobs, I would do mentorship for young women.

So I've always been. Yeah. In this space of wanting to help people feel less alone, wanting to help them succeed, especially women, since many times we start a little bit, a little bit backwards. and that said, I never thought I would be a coach. I remember when I was consulting, I was asked to write for a blog back when we all did blogs.

There's this blog called, what was it? A career girl. So it's funny. You called me a career girl. It was like career girl. com. I don't even think her site is up anymore, but I would write these career advice blogs just for fun, no intention of being a coach, but I think like many of us who are in a helping profession.

How I got into this is my own story. I, you know, I went to school study finance. I started in investment banking. Then I changed to financial consulting, which was a very high pressure. definitely a male dominated field. We're working 70, 80 hour weeks. Somehow I was in that for 9 years. I don't know how I survived, but that gives me like a, a deep understanding of what it's like to be in these high pressure jobs.

It also gave me access to seeing a lot of different types of companies and a lot of different industries. And when I left consulting, I completely changed careers to do marketing strategy and customer experience. So it was a complete 180. In consulting, it was all finance, and I was helping companies going through bankruptcies.

So, like, a very dark, heavy, and I'm like, I want to do something fun. I want to do something creative. And when I made that switch, I had so many people, well meaning people tell me, it's impossible. You're going to have to start at the beginning. Right, you're gonna have to start at the bottom and I would say, thank you and then move on to the next person.

Right? Because, like, I tell my clients, you just need 1 person to say yes. And when I executed that complete 180 career change, people started coming to me and saying, hey, can you help me? Will you look at my resume? And what did you say? And how did you change careers and somehow get a promotion? And so then I was coaching, like, in a more of a traditional sense on the side at night on the weekends, just for fun.

and then, you know, when I left my last corporate job, I wrote job joy and I decided I had to take my own advice, which is that I really wanted to do this full time. I had some limiting beliefs and stuff around that, but I, you can't write a book and be an integrity. You don't follow your own advice. And so I did it and I launched, my career coaching practice full time.

And so it's, to me, it seems like a very natural progression, right? Everything that I teach my clients I've done or am doing myself. And so it's fun that, you know, I get what it's like to be them. I've been in the trenches with them. And, I think, you know, whenever you're looking for a coach, it's one of the most important things.

Have they been where you are? Have they gotten where you want to get?

Yeah, that's what I meant at the beginning with like, you know how it is to work in corporate and you've been there and done that. And so it's much more relatable to work with somebody like you. And I definitely want to get back to how you did make that pivot later on. What I'm intrigued with is, is, as you said, you've wrote a book called Job Joy.

I'm interested to hear from you is how did your concept of job joy or what job joy means to you change over the course of your career? I'm sure it has been different to start with than it ends up being today.

Yeah, I think if you had asked me when I was in my 20s, what job joy was, I would have said it's that's an anomaly. Is that even possible? but job joy really came from. I was trying to find, like, a name to encompass what I met and that is really. The job doesn't mean you're happy at work every single moment of the day.

Right? But what it does mean is that overall, generally, you are happy. You feel like your work is impactful. You're seeing you're appreciated. You're energized by your work, but even outside of the office. Your job affords you the time, the resources, the money, the energy to have a really full aligned life outside of work.

And when I think back on all the jobs where I wasn't happy, despite the financial success, despite getting the promotions, despite. You know, the fancy experiences for a young person talking to boards and having meetings with CEOs, all these things that look really good on paper and that your parents are really proud to talk about.

Right? when I really look back and I wasn't happy. It wasn't necessarily the job, and it wasn't necessarily me, but it was that it wasn't a fit. The role and the lifestyle that was necessary to thrive in that role was not aligned with what I valued in life. And so, of course, I wasn't happy, right? Or, of course, when I got the promotions or I got more money, it would only be a short term morale boost.

I

Does that answer your question? I sometimes I go,

it, it,

on little tangents.

it does. And I feel like that's how we all start out, you know, in our corporate lives. And, you know, once we, you know, get our first jobs and it's all about, you know. Bigger, better, bolder, and all about promotions, the next title, status, and the latter. And I feel like, do we have to go through all that to discover what it is really about?

Or is there a shortcut to finding job joy right off the bat?

Well, the shortcut is to come watch my videos and or work with me. but I would say everybody's path is different, right? It was important for me to go through all these things so that I could do what I could do now. So I spent 15 plus years in traditional corporate roles. And if I had it, if I hadn't had all these experience, if I wasn't unhappy, if I didn't wasn't experiencing enough pain to.

Make the effort to make a change, then I wouldn't have that definition. I wouldn't have the appreciation now, right? We all want to be happy all the time. We want a life. That's only good. But how do we appreciate the good by experiencing the contrast of that? So, for me, my path was I had to, I had to go the hard way, but the point is, and what I try to do for my clients is exactly what you said, which is to shortcut it from the very beginning questioning.

Am I following the path I want to? Is this my definition of success or am I doing it for other reasons or other people? Which, by the way, is very common. I talk to people, you know, in their 40s and 50s and I ask them why they're in this job. It's oh, they wanted to make, you know, they went to law school.

They want to make their parents proud. When they were 20 years old, right? Or they got the 1st job out of school and then it was just kind of the momentum of life and they didn't really question it and getting a new job or changing careers is hard. And so here they are 20 years into a banking career that they actually had no interest in. Right? And so, if we can start from the beginning. Even though I, most of the people I work with have 10 plus years experience every once in a while, I'll get a younger person, usually a child of someone like an executive coaching. And when I get someone in their 20s, who's at the beginning of their career, it's just really nice to start with that foundation of who am I?

What do I want? What is this life? I want to build and does this job does this career path I'm going after. Is it actually going to fulfill and knowing, by the way, the job you choose at 22 is not going to be the job that's going to be a fit at 40 or 50. And that's okay, we're supposed to change.

I think in general, we forget that careers are not just the 10 years after graduation. It's 40 plus years in most of most of the cases and

nowadays.

a lot of time. Yeah.

Yeah.

do you think it's a generational thing though, in terms of like. The why that we're going after early on in our career, do you feel like, some of the older generations have probably been driven by what their parents wanted them to do where he is today in today's day and age Gen Z is all focused about, you know, bringing more balance in what it is that, what is it that I want?

And, do you think that's there's a difference in terms of generations?

Yeah, generation definitely definitely plays a big part in it and attitudes and even the options available, right? Our boomer parents, they didn't have all the options we have. And not only that, we do have more time and we do have, you know, it's a, it's a gift that we even can talk about fulfillment at work, right?

If we go back, not that long ago, you were just lucky to have a job and it was just being able to pay the bills. And so. Anyone who's listening to this and even pondering, what do I want to do with life? What's going to make me feel fulfilled? Like the fact that we get to reflect on this question is a, is a huge gift.

Different generations also had different economies and different things set up. So many boomers, they had pensions. That's not something that most younger people have right now. When we think about, you know, our, the boomer parents, right. Being able to have a stable job and stay there for a long time. That was very big.

Every generation, right, is going to kind of swing the pendulum another way, and there's pros and cons to both. But, you know, Gen Z has definitely, definitely swung the opposite of boomers. And it's, it's fun to see, because even though every older generation looks at the younger 1, and you got to pay your dues and you got to do this.

The fact is, that's what. Makes change, right? And so the boomers made a big change for generations past and Gen Z is doing that now. So I think there's, there's something to learn from all the generations is how I like to see it.

love that. you touched on something that often comes up for me personally, when I, you know, pursue my own career and I have a corporate career as well. And then, obviously, there's all these other things like, there's coaching on the side and then there's talking about career progression, starting a podcast and from the outside, it may sometimes feel like.

You know, you can't ever have enough. You're never content with what you have. And you're always looking for that little bit more. And I often, I tend to beat myself up over that in terms of like, how is this going to be perceived from the outside? do we, do we always want just more? You know, is it really just about, You know, wanting to pursue our careers, climbing the ladder in ever, which way possible. And, you know, this privilege that you talk about, about, you know, as having this career and seeking job joy, is it, you know, a concept that, you know, keeps us. Trapped in a way and some sort of hamster wheel that we build for ourselves or is, does it really make sense for us to seek job joy and to seek that fulfillment or is it really, you know, something that, holds us back?

yeah, well, I mean, since I wrote the book called job, of course, I'm going to tell you. But I, I will never judge someone for wanting more. mean, that's what keeps life exciting. I think the intention behind it, or the energy behind it is important. Do we want more because we're coming from a place of lack?

I'm not enough. I need to do more in order to prove myself in order to be worthy. Or is it coming from I'm really grateful with everything I've done everything I've created and I'm really excited to do. They're very different energies, even if both of them are wanting more. And so I think that's the important piece when we're looking at this.

And when we talk about job, joy, yes, it's a privilege to even be talking about it, but I would argue it's. It's not a it is necessary. Why is it necessary when we have happiness and fulfillment in our work? Right? It increases our confidence. It increases our impact. It increases our productivity. It makes us have healthier relationships.

It kind of the opposite of write a bad job. It affects your health mentally, emotionally, physically. It affects your relationships. It affects your overall well, being. Well, when we're happy and impactful and fulfilled at work, it also has a ripple effect on every single person we touch, whether it is our partner, whether it is our kids, whether it is the person at the grocery store, and that alone, I think is enough of a case for job joy.

Right. But when we're in jobs where we feel like our work matters and we're doing great work, we're going to have a better work product. We're going to make more money. We're going to have more fun doing it, and we're going to have more freedom in life. So yes, we, we all deserve job joy and I think we should all go for it.

And by the way. Job joy isn't that your job has to be perfect for some people. Job joy is I get a job that is just simple. I come in, I do my job, but it allows me to have the rest of the life I want. And that is especially true for everybody, right? It depends who you are. It depends your personality, but especially for artists, especially for people who have really full lives that are kind of separate from work.

It's okay. If work is just supporting everything else you want to do. if we're going to spend all that time there, which, by the way, we're most of our waking hours, especially if you have to commute, we're spending more time with our colleagues and our boss than we are with our loved ones. Why would we spend most of our time?

Miserable? Why would we spend nights and Sundays dreading work? It just it doesn't it's not a way to live life.

Yeah, what I'm taking away is in seeking job joy and in going after it, we not only affecting our own lives, but also the lives of those we live with, of those closest to us, and we're so much more impactful. I

we,

beautiful reasons.

It's not just impactful and like what we actually do, we're impactful and who we are and how we show up and the permission slip we give for others to do the same. We're inspiring to others. We're a better person, right? Think about it. Just me, it makes such a huge difference. And, you know, for me, this whole body of work, like, yes, it's career.

Yes, I do things like look at LinkedIn profiles and resumes, but your career. Can be a tool to really come home to yourself to really figure out who you are, what you want, and then have the courage to go after that and live an on purpose life. That is completely true to you. And I would argue that's 1 of the points of life.

So, for me, this is not just about, like, landing a new job or changing careers. It's if you want it to, it can be a really transformative experience.

I love that. You mentioned, how people might feel on Sundays, and I often think about Sunday scaries. So what I want to know from you is, what does job joy feel like? On a Sunday afternoon like you mentioned, it's not it's not always perfect. I reckon it might not be always looking forward to work on a Sunday afternoon.

But what does it have to feel like? So that people can grasp and get a tangible feeling for, you know, do I have that? Or should I be looking for something else?

Yeah, I'm not saying that you're always going to be like, oh, my God, I can't wait to get to work. Right? Especially you come back from a vacation. You come back from the holidays. I love my work. And sometimes I'm just not in the mood. Right? And that is very normal. Very human, but you have to have. Whether it's Sunday, whatever it is, something that you're excited about something that really fuels you, even enjoying your colleagues, right?

Feeling like you're part of something bigger than yourself. And so you might be relaxing on Sunday, and maybe you wish the weekend could last forever. You're with your loved ones. You're relaxing. You're working on your hobbies or whatever your things are. But there is kind of like those of us who like to go to school, right?

The excitement of I'm going to see my friends, we're going to learn about this. We're going to go on this field trip. Right? And when you're working, especially the further you get in your career, when you're working on a project or an initiative that actually matters to you where you get to be creative.

And that was true for a lot in my last corporate job. It was something that I was excited about, and it was also something this doesn't have to be true for everyone, but I have found personally when I'm in the right place in my work, I naturally am thinking about it and excited about it. Even if it's like a program running in the background, right?

Like, I'll notice things or or something. I'll be watching a movie and I'll have an idea and that can apply to my work. And so it, it's not so much that everything has to be separate, but it's more of an integration. If that makes sense.

Yeah, I, I love the word integration a lot more than work life balance because that's almost the concept of, okay, this is where work ends. This is where life starts. And my best days are always the ones where I'm. Outside doing something completely unrelated to work. And I got a great idea that I'm going to, come back in the afternoon.

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. So, thinking about it as an integration makes a lot of sense for me.

Yeah, I love that. I'm glad it resonated.

if, for someone who is seeking job joy and who just currently feels like. They don't have that in their career right now. Where do they start? What's the first thing to do? Like, even for somebody who. might not know what that looks like for them in particular.

Yeah. So I always start from a place of clarity and reflection. So if you have no idea, right, the best place to start is where you are. How did I get where I am and being like, radically self honest? How did I get in this job? Was it. I went to school for this thing because I thought it was my only option.

Was it? I was trying to impress someone. I was doing what my friends were doing. was it that I thought this job was going to be great and I got into it and it was completely different. Also looking at what is motivating you. Why are you not happy looking at your past jobs? What did you love? What did you not like?

What do you not want to do? And then besides the actual job, which I could give you a million more reflection questions for that, but really thinking about in my life, what is most important to me? What are my values and then defining them on your own? This is a little exercise. I give my clients at the beginning.

What are my top 3 to 5 values? How would I define them? Right? The freedom is 1 of my values. Yeah. But what I think freedom is right might be different than what you think freedom is and then thinking about each of those values. And if I were truly embodying what I say is most important to me, what would that look like?

And what would that feel like? And work? And maybe you don't know the. specifics of the job title or whatever, but how would I feel? What would the projects be that I would be working on? would I have solo time? Would I be working with the team? Would it be a flexible thing? What does my day to day look like even outside of work?

So, you know, love is another one of my values. Love, freedom, adventure, and I can tell you in my career, in my head, it's probably not a shock to you, right? But I can tell you what does love look like in my work? What does love look like in my relationships? What does love look like in my health and my physical health and my emotional health and doing that for each part of your life?

And then comparing that to the current state without judgment. We're all doing our best. I truly believe that we're all exactly where we need to be. Right. But if you're listening to this, if you're having these questions, right, might be time to do something different. And so without judgment, looking at that and saying, you know, is it aligned and where is it not aligned?

Right. And what is even a small shift I can make in my current job? We don't have to blow everything up, right? What are small shifts that I can make that under are under my control. And as you're doing that, you're going to be building that confidence. And then starting to think about what are the things I read on my own time?

What are the things that my friends can't get me to shut up about? Right. And is there anything there, whether it's a job, whether it's an industry, and as you keep doing this work, things are going to start revealing themselves. But it really starts with being radically self honest. And the reason I use that word radical is most of my clients are overthinkers very much in their head, like me.

I think that might resonate with my audience too.

Yes, right. We're in our heads. We're weighing the pros and cons. And many times there is this unconscious fear that if we're honest with ourselves about who we are and what we want, it might blow up our lives. And so we don't even allow ourselves to look. And what I would say is you don't have to blow up your life, but you do have to be brave enough to be honest with.

Who am I and what do I want? Because if you can actually go there, there's likely an easier path. And if not, right, that's, that's what's meant for you. But doing the exercise doesn't mean you even have to take action, but at least you have the knowledge, right? But so many of us don't even allow ourselves to go there. So that's why I say radical self honesty.

I like that. And I can imagine it can be scary to go there. self reflection is, you know, it's always the unknown for us, right? It's like, you never know what ends up happening. And, what I really liked is. this shift from thinking about your career and your job in terms of what it should look like and feel like, instead of asking yourself the question of.

You know, the dreaded, where do you see yourself in five to 10 years? And you always think, you know, job title, this kind of office, this kind of car, and to, to rather think about what, how do I envision my day to be like, you know, who am I when I wake up in the morning, what's the first thought that I'm thinking, what does it feel like to do the job that I envisioned to do?

So I really like that. And when it comes to values, how do you go about finding out your values? How did you get to freedom, adventure and love?

I don't remember. I might have been, you know what, as I'm thinking, it might have been like, I always choose a word every year and it might have been that one year. Like, I think I chose all 3 of these words, but even if I look back, like, I've always wanted to do my own thing. That's not new. Ask my parents since I was in preschool and would go off and I'd read a book while everyone else was doing something I wasn't interested in.

Like, I've always done my own thing. I love to love. I mean, that's. Yeah. I really think my work is really about loving people versus, you know, the tactical stuff that we're doing. and I've always been an adventurous person. So, it makes sense looking back, but I think a way that you can determine your values or what are the things that you get really passionate about?

What do you get hyped up about? What are the things that upset you? Right when a boundary is crossed, right? What what value might it be kind of encroaching upon another and this isn't always true, but they say, you can tell the values of someone by looking at their schedule and looking at their bank account or your credit cards.

Right? So, where do you spend your time? Where do you spend your money? That's when you're aligned. So the problem problem with it is if you're living a life and you have a career that is not aligned with who you are and what you want, right? Those 2 might not be a match, but look about look at when you have free time when you have extra money.

What are you spending that on? Right? If I had extra money, I was definitely booking a trip. That's adventure.

Oh, same.

Exactly when you have a free Saturday, right? What are you doing? Are you for me? Right? I'm exploring a new trail. I'm going on a new hike or I'm whatever it may be. And so looking at those things when you're not doing what you think you should be doing, that can also be a key to what are your values.

I love those questions. So what do you do on a Saturday when you have time off? What, what, what do you naturally navigate to? That's a great question to ask. And where do I spend any extra money on?

Yeah, where do you spend your

I

and money? Your extra time and your extra money?

Yeah. I feel like when it comes to values, it can, it can sometimes be this process of, you know, it can feel so big for us to, to pick and to go down that road of, you know, what do I stand for?

What are my values? And I love these questions. They make it a lot more tangible.

Yeah, and it's like, don't be so precious with it. Right? Like, if I were to say, like, my mission statement, right? My mission statement is around, you know, more connecting with people doing this work so that they can use career as a portal to come back home to themselves and create a career and a life they want.

Right? That's like a very specific. But what is that really? Right. That's love what is it really helping people to have the sort of freedom that I've always wanted so we can get specific and we can be precious, but really, but we don't need to start there. We'd never need to even get there. It will naturally.

Reveal itself so that's another thing. We're not like, going out there and finding and grabbing we're letting it reveal itself as we honor who we really are,

Ooh,

building the relationship with yourself, which so many people don't do. We are. Taught not to right. We defer to an authority. We deferred.

We're taught that from the time we're little. Right. And so a big part of the work I do with clients is developing that self trust, that self safety, that relationship. How do I talk to myself? Right. I'm still working on this one. I can be really harsh

yeah.

with myself.

I'm the same. I'm like very mean to myself at times.

But think about it. We care about and we work for things and people we love and so if we're having trouble motivating to do the things that are going to make us happy, right?

That are good for us. That are healthy for us, right? Maybe part of it is that relationship. And so I know everyone's talking about self love, right? But I'm not talking about bubble baths and manicures. Yes, that's fantastic. I love it.

want that too. Hmm.

you make a mistake, when something bad happens, do you beat yourself up?

Do you turn on yourself? Right? When something happens, are you there for yourself? The way you would be for a best friend, right? When we're talking about taking care of ourselves. It's not just taking care of ourselves because we should or because we read a book. Here's the best morning routine, but it's knowing yourself and caring for yourself.

Like, like, you would child, right? You know, who they are, you know, their personality. These are the foods that work well with them. If you give them too much of this, they go crazy. If you put them in a school and it's not a right environment, you take them out of that environment. Right out of that job so that you can be in a place where you can thrive.

And so we do that naturally for the people in our lives. We love what if like, imagine how different things would be if we, if we started actually treating ourselves as though we loved ourselves. There's your hack, right? Well, even if you can't say, I love me, what would I do? If I love myself, how would I respond to this tough situation?

And would I stay in this job? If I loved myself. Right? What? And that's for everything.

what I loved about the way you said about revealing yourself is it means that a lot of the answers are already inside

of them are.

means that we're not looking for anything that we don't know yet deep down subconsciously, it's not something that. You know, that doesn't belong to us. It's something that's already within us and it's just about revealing it and, you know, seeing it more clearly.

And I find that really powerful.

Yeah. Revealing yourself is bit by bit, tiny little bit at a time. We're taking off those layers of protection that we put on ourselves as layers of identity that at one point kept us safe at one point helped us belong. Right? The person we thought we needed to be or the defense mechanisms, right? When we defense mechanisms, they start out as a reaction to keep us safe in some situation.

And then they turn into personalities. And many times you talk to people once they do their work, it's that's actually not their personality. It's just an old belief and an old pattern that became, you know, on repeat. So it's coming back to who you truly are minus all the defense mechanisms, all the identity stuff, just all the stuff that got you to where you are now, but now you want to do something different.

And none of that is wrong, by the way, very human, very much what we need to do. And many of these layers that came on were actually necessary at the time they were put in place, but then they became habits. They became personality.

Yeah. I like to think about it as layers. So once you've peeled them off and once you've revealed what's inside, now what? In terms of like next step now, I know roughly what I, what I want, where I want to go. And you mentioned this example of, you know, in your career at the beginning of like, wanting to pivot into a completely different field, but not wanting to accept, you know, a lower entry point or even getting a promotion in, you know, while doing it.

How do we go about that? Once we know what it is that we want, how do we achieve it? I'm

yeah, so to answer the 1st question, I don't think the work is ever done. I think we're finding ourselves until the day we die. Sorry, guys. It's not just the, I'm going to answer these

I had a hunch, but this is harsh

Sorry, I'm going to tell you the truth, but I think that can be a great that can be a great adventure of life. Right? Who am I? What am I meant for? What's next for me? What's what's mine to do? that said, when you get just enough clarity for in this season of life, what I know about me now, what would be next?

What would be? We can start to explore different jobs, different careers that are of interest that are aligned with our values that are also aligned with our the lifestyle that we want. When I was in consulting, you. Again, this is no fault of consulting, but we were working 70, 80 hours a week. Right? And that is not the lifestyle I want at this point in my life.

Right? And it served me. Well, I learned so much in a short period of time and that's not what I want. So we look at the different career options and then where. Basically, what I help people do is build a personal brand about where they want to go. And part of that is like, finding that golden thread and being able to share it and articulate it in a way that is easy for other people to understand, especially the people who matter, who are the people who matter, the decision makers who can get us in and the process of creating what I call your career story, which is The foundation of your personal brand, connecting all the dots of where you've been your education, your experience, your achievements, your personality, your quirks, connecting all those dots from where you are now to where you want to go.

The process of that is validating the process of having to do that. Is very confidence building for people. And then, as you go out in the world, as you're networking, as you're sharing this, you're going to see what lands with people. What doesn't you're going to create your whole personal brand, which, by the way, we all have a personal brand, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're not,

Whether you know it or not.

right?

What are you known for? When people think of you, what have they think of? And so, If we can have some control over that, why would we not leverage that to help us reach our goals? But that whole process of developing that and then sharing it and being seen and reflected back that also tends to bring more clarity, not just about how the person is presenting themselves, but about what it is that they want. And so through working this process, whether it's a job search, whether it's not. It's very iterative, meaning that the more you do this, the more clarity you get about yourself. You come back. You were fine. Is this right? Do I need to pivot a little and you work that process until you in this case, right?

Land that job. That's going to be your next move. Guess what? You're going to land the job. It's not going to be perfect forever. It might not be what you want. You're going to learn more, right? You're going to get closer and closer. You know, as, as you move through your career, and also you're going to change, you're going to evolve.

And so the thing that's perfect for you right now is probably not going to be perfect for you, maybe even just five years down the line. And that's okay. And that's what I would argue makes career and life exciting that we're not doing the same thing over and over, forever and ever.

What I really like about this is asking yourself, where am I in this season of if in the season of my life and the season of my career and going back to it being 40 plus years for most of us, there are different seasons within that time period. And there are. There's completely different lifestyles from A to Z and honoring that and also accepting that a career is not a straight line.

And at one point we find what it is that we want, you know, we've finally figured it out and then we stay in that for the rest of our lives. But it's this, as you say, it's circular and, we move through the seasons and we get to change and we get to evolve and. I reckon that personal brand bit that you mentioned might also change over time and we become better at selling ourselves.

Now that's something that, I especially want to ask because of my audience, you know, that, for us introverts,

I was just going to say

brand.

the way I'm an introvert too. I'm not shy. So that might not come across, but I am a total introvert. So ask away.

if I lend one message with this podcast, it is to say that not all introverts are shy. And I love that you're saying that. but for me, when I hear the word personal brand and now I've looked at it from several angles too, in recent years. And, I think the narrative changed a little bit for me, but.

Yeah. Initially, I always thought of a personal brand as of something that celebrities have, or, you know, entrepreneurs have, and it's all about, you know, branding yourself and, and PR and, you know, things that I don't necessarily need in my corporate career. Now, what do you think about that and how.

Applicable is something like a personal brand to somebody who is introverted, who is a little less offensive in the way they present themselves and the way they articulate their strength and so on.

yeah. I would argue whether you put intention into it or not. We all have a personal brand. Right? So, yes, we don't need to have a Kardashian brand, right? It doesn't have to be celebrity. But the fact is, what do people say about you when you're not in the room, right? When opportunities come up, do they think of you for that?

What, what do people come to you with questions about and which, by the way, that might be related to your work or not. And if you can be clear about who you are and what you want and consciously intentionally show people that, then you're going to get to do more of what you want. You're going to master that.

Right? And so part of personal branding, when we are making a change, it's kind of stepping into the person that you are. We want to become, or the person underneath little before we're super comfortable. And so it's being intentional with that. So we get the opportunities and the experiences we want, and it doesn't have to be super loud when I was in corporate.

Actually, it started because I was writing for that blog. Someone had asked me to come speak at a conference in Florida and then I was like, yeah, I really like speaking. And I remember my boss in my last corporate job. He did not believe in conferences. He wasn't going to pay for it and there was this conference I wanted to go to and I was only 3 months into this new job and I wanted to go to this conference and I was like, looking at the page.

I'm like, okay, he's not going to let me go. And then they had a call for speakers. I'm like, well, if I speak, they're not going to charge me. And I'm like, well, I've only been in this industry a few months, but I'll go ahead and I'll apply. And I got the speaking engagement. And. Which ended up being great. I got to go to the conference.

I got to work on a skill that I knew would be important to me. But then from that 1 thing, so I was being proactive. What did I want? I asked for it. I went for it. But then speaking engagement started coming to me. Right? Because I. Whether consciously or unconsciously, I started branding myself that way and opportunities came up.

I could have never guessed. I got asked to speak at a conference in Sweden. I was a keynote at a, a huge marketing conference in Singapore, like biggest conference for the, the Asian, Southeast Asia. And I say this because if I didn't. If I didn't go after what I enjoyed, right? If I didn't create that brand, it wasn't open and out there.

I, these opportunities would have never come to me. So it doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be loud. It's owning who you are and what you want, being proactive and not, not hiding your strengths, not hiding. And there's even for introverts, like I am not the person who is going to scream from the rooftops.

Oh my God. Oh my God. I got featured in the wall street journal. That's just, it's. The ick, but what I will do and what feels good to me and is very true for a lot of introverts. I am so honored right? Wall Street Journal is the is the paper that I would read in college while I was doing the stair master at the gym.

And so to come full circle. Right. Early in my business getting quoted there, that was a big deal, but there's a different energy. And so the way that we show up and the way that we sell ourselves or show up in our personal brand, it has to be authentic to who we are. So that's not for me, which by the way, there are people who can scream from the rooftops.

Oh my God, look at me. Look at this. Isn't this great celebrate with me. And that works for them because it's aligned with them. And then we have some people who do that and we kind of get the ick and that's because it, something is off, right? So that's another part of knowing who you are so that you can share things in a way that is authentic and aligned and helpful and a value, right?

So in this example, Wall Street Journal article, it's not just, Oh, I'm so honored, but it's, Hey, here for me, it's takeaways that we talked about. Have you ever had this issue?

Yeah. And, and making it a way to connect with others, I find very, very

That's all of this. Yes. Yeah.

like letting the world know what it is you're interested in and almost like, as you say, voicing what it is that you want to do, because other people don't know if we don't tell them, right? It's always this, this notion of.

If you don't ask for it, you're not going to get it. And I like this example of like the speaking engagement. You had to go for the first one. You had to be intentional with that one. And then it became easy. And then it became like they organically came to you and you didn't have to put as much effort in the next ones.

And I think that's an introvert's dream come true in terms of like, you know, if, if things start to happen in line with. Who you are and what you really do well. there's nothing better.

Yeah. I mean, I'm such an introvert that nowadays I would have to be a really special conference. I won't go to a conference unless I'm speaking because introvert hack, when you speak, everyone comes to you to network. So if you're shy about approaching strangers, just speak.

Plus people have a topic that they'll approach you about. You will be very literate and articulate about that topic because you just spoke about that on stage. It does feel like a life hack. So introverts get on stage. go speak. Wow. I love that. Now, personal branding is that, you know, can we think of that as a tool to make that happen?

Is that something that we hone over time and we start to become more comfortable with the way we speak, the way we voice our, needs, wants and needs, and then, we become more intentional with that.

I don't want people to just use a personal brand in their job search. That is where a lot of us start. But even once you've landed the job, you probably have goals. Do you want to be an influencer in your company? And I don't mean influencer, like people selling stuff on TikTok. I mean, do you want to have influence?

Do you want to have impact in your organization? In your industry, right? Do you are you do you already have your eyes set on what the next thing is? And so whatever your goals are is what your personal brand should be aligned with. So, when I think of personal branding, it's always future focused. And so a big piece of that.

Is having the love and being of service enough to say, based on where I want to go, what is important for me to show? I didn't mean to make that rhyme, but based on where I want to go, what is important for me to

sounds very rehearsed.

Yes, I have that down here in my notes, but it is an active service to peel away the things that don't matter to who you're talking to versus the things that do matter.

Right? And it's very true in a job search. If you want to make something happen, you have to make it easy, make it easy for the hiring manager to see why you're a fit, which could mean, of course, it's the examples you show it's. The questions you ask, but it might even mean deemphasizing or not talking much about specific experience.

When I was changing from finance to strategy and marketing, I had a bunch of certifications that I was really proud of that took a lot of work and a lot of time to get. But the fact is a, a healthy company who wants someone to do marketing and strategy, Knowing that I have a certification and distressed business evaluation, that's confusing and distracting.

And so it's being of service to them when I don't even bring that up. Instead, I highlight the things that matter to them, right? And that takes it takes time. It takes intention. It's it's being thoughtful, but you have to remember when you're sharing your stories, your whether it's your resume, whether it's your bio, it's not about you. Your bio is not about you. It's about. Your audience, whether your audience is at a conference, what do they care about? Why are they there? Whether your audience is a company, a hiring manager or in my case, right? Even the things that I share, if I'm talking to people in corporate, my story is slightly different than if I'm talking to people in corporate who want to start businesses, right?

Because the things that matter to those 2 different groups are different. If I were to go look for a job now, the story that I would tell, the things I would highlight for a finance job would be very different than a marketing job. I'm the same person, but I'm pulling out the things that are most important to whoever I'm speaking with.

I just jotted that down and understood it just because

Oh, which part?

it's not about you.

Yeah, it's not about,

you know, and I find so much comfort in that because I feel like as an introvert, I'm often. I'm often uncomfortable with something being too much about me and, you know, being in the spotlight too overtly. And so I think about whenever I go into a job interview, it feels like it's all about me.

And they're asking me all those questions and, you know, I'm on the spot in this situation. But if you reverse it, and if you think about, no, they are my audience and I'm here to serve them and let them know. Why I am the right candidate for the role that they have. It almost takes the pressure off. It doesn't, it almost takes the pressure of, Oh, this is not about me.

This is about this role. And we're here to discuss whether I'm the right fit for it. And almost, it almost takes the pressure off. It almost, I almost feel like I'm breathing out and yeah, it does feel better.

that's an introvert hack, but it's so true. It's so true. It's not about you. Right? Like, even, you know, some, somewhere you asked me a question, I said, I had 15 years experience in corporate jobs. Why is that important? Because someone listening to this wants to know that I understand I'm not a 25 year old with no real world experience and never had a job calling myself a career coach.

That's important to them. Right? Right and that is, we talk about, like, the servant mindset, but that is in service that is being really thoughtful. So. I love that it's also an introvert hack.

Kristen, tell me about some of the pitfalls in all this. What are some of the things that the clients you work with stumble over? What are some of the things that, might become difficult in our quest for job joy?

Yeah, I think being hard on yourself is a big 1 where we all have these patterns and it's not just being hard on yourself, but really. Continuing to do the work and looking at how am I motivated a big 1 is when people feel stuck. How am I benefiting from staying stuck? It's a big 1 right? How am I benefiting from not saying what I say?

I'm going to do right? And it's a hard thing. You know, an example would be I was working with a client who. She really wanted to get a promotion and she was upset. Every time there would be a meeting. She would have smarter things to say than the other people, or they would say it way later, but she would never speak up.

And so 1 of her goals was speak up in meetings. Right. And can a couple of weeks go by. Okay. Well, I didn't have the opportunity. I didn't do it, blah, blah, blah. And finally, I'm like, okay, how are you benefiting from staying quiet? And, you know, there's the, what, what do you mean? That's a mix up. Why would I, I'm not benefiting, but when you really ask yourself and you're honest, she's like, well, if I start speaking up, it's going to be expected.

And what if there's a time when I don't have the answer if I start speaking up and I get the promotion I want, it's going to be really awkward when I'm managing people that are my peers. And what if they don't like me? What's the fallout of that going to be? And when you can get to that, how am I benefiting?

Because once you have the clarity, once you know who you are and what you want right now, if you're not taking action, there is some feeling or situation that you're trying to avoid. And when you can shine the light on that and see what that is, many times it's not that scary, right?

you say it out loud, it becomes less scary already, doesn't it? But I resonate with that. Yeah. How am I benefiting from staying quiet?

Yeah.

That's one for the audience because we talk so much about, you know, being quieter in meetings and corporate settings and Yeah. How are we benefiting and what are we afraid of?

It's a good

Yeah. What am I afraid of? Or even what feeling am I trying to avoid? That's a big one. And these are all similar questions, but sometimes they'll get to us in a different way than another 1 will.

Yeah. I love that. now that you've talked so much about your introversion, how do you feel being introverted is a, is a benefit and advantage to you in your career? Do you ever talk about your introversion when, you know, When you talk about your personal brand, is that ever something that is front and center in front of mind for you?

It's not, it's so integrated in me that it's, it's not. Front and center, because then, I, I honestly don't I've accepted it. I don't think about it. It doesn't hold me back that much, but it does come up when I'm teaching networking classes when we're talking about online networking when I'm encouraging my clients to put themselves out there.

I naturally. Put it through the introvert lens, because that's, you know, I did it 1st. I never advise my clients to do something that I haven't done or I'm not doing right now. So I wouldn't say it's. It's not not part of my brand, but it's also not something that I would say is front and center. But I think there are lots of benefits to introversion, right?

Benefits to both like everything. I'm thinking that book, what's that book? Quiet. It's the gray book with the red letters.

Yeah.

Yes. Classic book for introverts. But, you know, we are more thoughtful. We do put, We do think deeper about things, which I think can absolutely be helpful. It can also cause us to overthink, but we can use that rather than overthinking in a bad way where we're spiraling.

Right? What if we were overthinking in a positive way? So I think it's. We talked, we talked about loving yourself. I think part of that is loving all your quirks as a human. And if you're an introvert, that's one of your quirks and looking at what are all the amazing things about it. Even if you're not sure, ask your family, ask your friends, right?

How, how is my introversion a gift? We're great listeners. We pick up on cues, right? The reason I love video, the reason I always do video calls with my clients, just the phone. Is I can see like, in the twitch of your eye, that was like a microsecond. I see it. I feel it right. I'm connected to that and extroverts aren't always that introverts also tend to be more inclusive.

We are aware of if someone is alone and feeling awkward and we tend to include them. So there are so many positives to being introverted and I'm just this is just off the top of my head. So it's not a negative.

I love that. I also love the word quirks. Just because it feels like it gives some spice. It gives some, it gives a little bit of an edge. It kind of makes you, makes you a little different, makes you stand out. I love that.

Absolutely. I like to, you know, there's this concept of, of turning on your witness. And I'm thinking of that book, classic personal development book, untethered soul. And he talks a lot about your witness or your higher self. Basically that, that part of you that knows everything's going to be okay.

Right? Not the part of you. I'm not lovable. I'm not worthy. I'm never going to be successful. I'm a disappointment, right? All those, right. We know, we know those words, but the part of you that Kind of can see you through the eyes of the way God would see you. And if you can simultaneously be in your humanness, but also have your witness turned on, even loving yourself with your quirks, with your humanness, with your struggles, you start to be your own advocate and develop that relationship with yourself so that you know, you can hold yourself through anything.

And that's what safety is. Safety isn't having this, there's no such thing as a stable job. We've seen that in the past few years. Safety is not the job. Safety is not the partner. The real life hack. It's something that I've been it's a continuous thing. I haven't solved this, but something that I'm always working on and strengthening, right?

Is how can I develop that safety from within? And part of that is being able to hold yourself and be there for yourself. Through all the difficult things and through your humanness and even being able to things that do hold you back, even laugh at like, Oh, that's so Kristen. Right. And, and, and it, the way you would see through the eyes of loving someone else.

I love the safety from within. That feels Like the perfect end point, if I, one more thing I got to ask just because to, you know, just to close the loop from the start, how did you make that pivot from finance into marketing? What was the secret sauce of like, landing a job in a completely different function without accepting, you know, without having to compromise on pay on position anything you mentioned that at the start now, I don't want to let the audience go before we.

Understand that that's

I was kind of figuring out as I, as I went along, but, like, the exact steps that's my find your job program, which, by the way, you like, you like a softball that you gave to me, but, like. The exact steps to a tear and find your job joy, but at a high level 1st is clarity, clarity about the job, clearly about yourself, clearly about the season of life of who you are, what you want.

All of that. 2nd is building what I call a campaign. These are the 3 C's if anyone's. Paying attention, taking notes. You have clarity. You have campaign. Campaign is your personal brand, how you talk about yourself, your online presence. Treat yourself like you, like your product. You are, we're all selling ourselves all the time.

If you just want to have more impact at work, you have to be able to sell yourself. Right. And then connection, right? You can have clarity. You can have this beautiful aligned personal brand, but if the right people don't know who you are, right. You're not going to connect. You're not going to be able to make the impact you want to make.

And then having that with a. base of self care, self love self, just relationship with self, right? Because many of us are not going to jump straight to self love. But like I said, if you, if you can't say, I love me, what would I do if I loved myself? But those 3 C's and, you know, there's details within them, but the clarity of the campaign, the connection, and then working that over and over because as you talk to people, like we touched on before.

You're going to get feedback on how you're positioning yourself. You're going to get feedback just on, are these the right people I should be talking to when you learn more about companies and opportunities, that what I actually want. And so then it's this continuous improvement of once I have connection, I get more clarity in all these different ways.

Then I'm going to update my campaign. So I'm going to be more targeted. I'm going to be talking to the right people and I'm going to keep learning as I keep evolving. My personal brand is going to evolve. My goals are going to evolve, right? And it's just, it becomes who you are and how you live. It's all happening anyway.

Why would we not be intentional?

a good question. We'll drop there and thank thank you so much. Kristen. Where can anyone find you work with you? I love how you put together this framework that shortcut that takes you into, you know, finding job joy right away without all the struggle. so let my audience know how they can find you.

Yeah, so I am all over my website is find your job. Joy dot com. There is a free linked in class, which it's linked in personal branding, et cetera. If you sign up for that class, you'll get the class and you'll get on my email list. I usually do a free master class every month or every other month. I'm on YouTube.

Just look up. Find your job. Joy or at Kristen. Devo. You and I connected on Instagram. I think, I'm on TikTok. I'm, I'm everywhere, but if you go to find your job, joy. com, that'll give you the general, you know, the general feel on me. And if you go to the programs, there's 1 on corporate, the corporate track, and that will, that will show you, even if you don't want to join the program, which I hope you do, but even if you don't go to the syllabus, those are the steps. The syllabus is the steps to make a career change, or even just to get a new job that you actually love

Thank you, Kristen, so much. I feel like I have so many takeaways from today. I feel like the process and the framework that you describe, gives everyone a very clear step by step guide and for everyone who wants a little more support in that. Definitely reach out, Kristen. thank you for the lovely conversation.

I really enjoyed speaking with you and meeting you, you know, almost in person, but virtually.

feels like it.

Yeah.

Thank you

so much.