Life is happening... now!

So the real key to happiness, which is what your original question was, is to feel gratitude, to feel celebration and appreciation for yourself in the small achievements, the small steps forward that you’re able to take as you’re moving towards some larger goal, which is still in sight as a north star, as a trajectory. You’re not aimless, but you’re recognizing that life is happening now.

Thank you. Great to be here again.

Sure. Yeah. Wow, six months. It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long. But yeah, in the last six months I’ve been working with a lot of different clients who are in different parts of that hero’s journey. Some of them are in transition between jobs, trying to think about what the right next step for them is going to be and how to make that next step happen. Others are in a role currently that they’re not necessarily unhappy with, but they’re feeling the environment around them being unstable. They’re thinking about wanting to lay the groundwork for the changes that they probably need to make in order to get ready to make some kind of a change in their jobs, and essentially getting ahead of it. Making sure that the work that needs to happen is being thought about, is being planned and executed now.

And really looking for an accountability partner, someone to provide some guidance and conversation, observations about where it feels like they need more work or more attention, or where they want to drill a little deeper in terms of their goals and purpose. So it’s been a great assortment of different types of folks in different roles, different levels of seniority, who are in different parts of their journey. So very rewarding on that front, and that’s been a lot of progress since we last spoke.

In addition, I’ve been doing a lot of work to, let’s say, think out loud about some of the topics that I work with people on, in the form of posts on LinkedIn, videos I’ve been making, and also a newsletter on Substack that I started. And what I found, which I find very interesting actually, is that the process of creating that content and really articulating my thinking, and maybe reflecting back some of the things that I’m hearing from the clients that I work with, is beneficial for me as a coach. And also I’m finding that it’s kind of inspirational and educational for people who are on the receiving end of that content. I’m hearing a lot of feedback that the material I’m putting out there is super straightforward, it’s more optimistic, it’s very tangible in the sense of, okay, I understand this is a thing I now need to think about and do. So that’s incredibly gratifying. And in a way it’s interesting to see that as I’m growing in the way that I think about these things and how I help people with these challenges, it’s improving essentially the support that I provide to others. So a nice virtuous circle. You know, what could be wrong with that?

So, a few things. I guess the first thing I would want to acknowledge is that if you’re in a position where you’re really unhappy in the role that you have, or if you’re in a position where you are not currently working and you really feel a lot of pressure to find the next thing, there is absolutely nothing wrong with saying, this is a goal that I really need to attain, that I feel a sense of urgency towards making this change.

The way I would frame the feeling that comes from achieving that change is relief. And relief is definitely a sort of letting go of pressure. It’s a sense of, I’ve been pursuing something for a long time, putting a lot of effort in. When I achieve that, I feel good about myself. I feel a sense of, I just want to exhale and say, great, I’ve done that. So anything that you’re working on that’s high priority, whether it’s a job or maybe some educational attainment or any other goal that you’ve set for yourself, when you achieve it, it’s going to feel good. It’s going to feel like relief. That’s great, and that makes sense. But the question of, I’ll be happy, I think is a much deeper and more complicated question.

And coming into this conversation, I was thinking about what has maybe become more concrete for me in the past six months in terms of how I work with clients and how I think about some of these questions. And I was thinking, there are a couple of core principles that seem to come up over and over again. And this really relates to the question of happiness, fulfillment, purpose, etc. The three things are self-awareness, mindset, and incremental change. It seems like no matter what problem you’re trying to solve or goal you’re trying to achieve, or even in a sense many of the techniques or approaches that you’ll hear me talk about, or other coaches or thought leaders talk about, somewhere one or all of those core principles is at work.

And so when you talk about, like, I’ll be happy when, I think you need to ask yourself, what does happiness really mean to you? And are you saying that you’re not happy now? And maybe you’re not. I mean, maybe there are things that are not where you want them to be. Maybe you’re not feeling like you’re in the right place, like you’re your true self, like you’re operating in a way that’s fulfilling. And so that’s where self-awareness comes in. So really taking the time to break down a question as big as that, and to break down a question of, where am I in my relationships, in my work, in my health, in my sense of self, in my sense of my own ability and competence. I mean, this is difficult work, and you have to take kind of a clear-eyed look at what’s happening to really understand, well, if I think I want to go over there, then where am I now, right? And that’s part of the hard work.

So just sort of investing some future achievement of a goal as the thing that’s going to make the difference, I mean, I hate to say it, but it’s very unlikely to be true. You will feel some relief for a little while, but if you haven’t addressed the ways in which you’re kind of out of sync or lost or feeling uncomfortable, then that thing is only going to be a temporary fix, and you’re going to find yourself back in the same place.

And the second thing, mindset, is really about, once you’ve understood some of those facts and realities based on your self-awareness, reframing, or even framing for the first time for some people, what that story really means. I was here, I want to be there, I’m on this journey, you know, as we’ve talked about. And on a day-to-day basis, how am I viewing my own interaction with others, my own progress towards the goals that I’ve set for myself? What is the story? Am I thinking of it as a sort of desperate search for something that’s incredibly urgent and existential? Am I thinking of it as a learning journey? Am I getting better? Am I growing? Am I thinking of it as an opportunity for me to derive satisfaction and fulfillment and connection on a daily basis, to have laughs and to feel joy and to feel appreciation and gratitude? This is all mindset related.

And the more that you can craft a mindset for yourself that has you feeling engaged and connected and observant in what you’re going through now, the less you’re going to be dependent on the achievement of long-term goals that may be very much out of your control. And so if you’re going to be someone who’s only saying, until I have this amount of money, this salary, or I have this job, I’ll never be happy, you’re putting a lot of faith in the decisions and the whims of others, and of the universe generally, to be the thing that drives your happiness. And that’s ultimately not a great strategy, in my opinion.

And the last thing, incremental change. Over and over again, when we talk about habit building, when we talk about really making a plan and sticking to it, executing over a long period of time, recognizing that it’s one step at a time, it’s one small achievement, one small outcome at a time, and celebrating and reveling in each of those small steps, is just the way that you get there. And this has been neurologically proven over and over again. Many books, you know, James Clear and others have written about this fact, that if your only definition of what is working and what success is is this long-term big swing outcome, you’re going to spend a lot of time disappointed between now and the achievement of that thing, if that achievement ever comes.

So the real key to happiness, which is what your original question was, is to feel gratitude, to feel celebration and appreciation for yourself in the small achievements, the small steps forward that you’re able to take as you’re moving towards some larger goal, which is still in sight as a north star, as a trajectory. You’re not aimless, but you’re recognizing that life is happening now, right? And so you have to make sure that you’re really paying attention to what’s going on.

Absolutely. You know, you might get to somewhere that’s aligned with your values, right? And that is kind of the definition of where you want to be to be a happy and fulfilled person. But that might actually be a really hard place to be in, and you might actually be there and find that I’m not feeling very happy. So it’s complicated. Listen, we could get very philosophical about this.

One of the aspects of this question for me is when you talk about happiness as a state that you can achieve. And what’s implied in that question is that it’s a state that you’re at rest in. So in other words, you’ve come to a place and now you’re at rest. You’re pausing, you’re stopping, and this is a place of happiness. And contained in that is the assumption and the wish that nothing changes. That you’ve achieved what you want to achieve, and circumstances are not going to change, you’re not going to change, the people around you won’t change. So you’ll be able to stay very carefully and quietly in that place of happiness for as long as possible.

It’s completely unrealistic. We are completely dynamic beings, and we exist in a place of constant change around us. So the idea that there’s some static state that you can achieve, whether it’s happiness or some other state, that will not immediately change or be influenced by circumstances both inward and external, it’s just not true. So you really have to think of yourself as being able to be happy in motion. And that’s kind of how I think about that question.

Yeah. Stopping point is when you’re dead. That’s when you stop. And so let’s not wish for that, right? No, absolutely. Absolutely.

Right. So the question comes up, I think, in very tangible, concrete ways when you’re thinking about a job search, whether you have to get into one because you’re in between jobs, or you’re feeling unhappy and unsatisfied and you think, well, there’s got to be something more, right? And so the question of what am I good at comes up because the idea of work, and it goes back to what we were just talking about, the idea of work as a primary source of fulfillment and a primary source of identity giving for us as human beings, is all around us. So we are inundated with this idea that if you don’t have a strong growing career, you’re not respected, successful, making money, etc., kind of engaging in the capitalist narrative effectively, then there’s something wrong with you.

So I think that’s really what’s at play in this question of what am I good at. Because it’s a very vague term, for one thing. What am I good at? Good, what does good even mean? Good in the context of what goal, good in the context of what purpose, good in what way? But it’s natural for us to be asking ourselves that question in a moment of uncertainty. So I framed it as, when I’m saying what am I good at, what I’m really asking myself is, what can I do that will help me feel safe, less afraid, more confident, more secure, more stable? And so that’s a very natural psychological question to ask. But in the context of a job search in particular, or a job change, it’s not really very helpful.

What you should be asking is, what are the skills that I have? What are the muscles that I’ve built? What are the specific achievements that I can note in terms of the roles I’ve had, the background I have, the teams that I’ve worked with, the things that I’ve built? And you can ask yourself that question and be fairly specific. And this is very important for resume creation. I mean, if you’re not able to do that, then your resume is going to present your background as super vague and abstract, and it’s going to be harder to be successful. So you can ask yourself that question and be as concrete as you possibly can.

But it also really helps to think about examples in your past, conversations you’ve had with people, or conversations that people regularly have with you. Why do they regularly come to you? What are you noticing that people are trusting you for? Right? So there’s an old saying which everybody uses, which is, it’s hard to read the label from inside the bottle. And so you’re inside the bottle, and particularly in a work context you’re always thinking about how do I feel, what am I doing, how am I showing up. And it can be hard to just listen and pay attention to what your colleagues, the company, the industry, the market is saying to you about where you’re really engaging, interesting, strong, trustworthy.

And so you can spend a minute asking yourself what am I good at. And recognize, I think again self-awareness, recognize that what’s going on there really is you’re worried, it’s a question that comes from anxiety. And so you can pause on that anxiety, give yourself a little grace and say, this is normal for me to feel at this particular moment, and then move on to something more tactical and practical. If you can, actually ask people, if you feel that you can trust them to give you good responses and honest responses, and actually come to a conversation like that wanting to help you, understanding what you’re wanting to achieve. Then have the conversation, ask them, what do you feel is the value that I’ve brought to you and to our team? What really stands out for you when you think about me? What kinds of tasks or challenges do you think of me for? And then you start to build a picture, and in that way you’re really creating a more concrete and specific map, essentially, of what you’ve achieved, what you’re capable of, where you’ve helped others, where you’ve helped organizations and teams. It’s a much better and more useful way of looking at this question than the sort of broad, more anxious, what am I good at?

Yeah. Well, and talk about a dynamic environment. I mean, we’re in a space where even the jobs that exist and seem to be strong and durable today, they may not exist five years hence, or they’ll certainly be very different. So it’s almost like a bad strategy to say, what do I want to be right now, or even, what am I good at, what is the thing that I can actually do? It shouldn’t be just one thing.

And this is another reason why I think coaching, whether it’s an internal coaching mindset or actually working with an external coach, or even just engaging in self-improvement through reading or podcasts or what have you, why it’s so important. Because, and I think you’re absolutely right that it’s a big difference in our sort of current epoch as opposed to prior times, what’s being asked of you is for you to build a set of skills and tools that are flexible and agile, and where you can deploy them fairly responsively in reaction to what you’ve learned about yourself and what you’ve learned about what opportunities are out there and how the world is changing, seemingly on a month-to-month basis around you.

So much of our professional world today, including upskilling, corporate education, training, etc., and certification, as well as traditional education, is really built on this idea that we can depend on the fact that certain skill sets, certain roles and jobs, are going to be there when we’ve trained ourselves up to be credentialed and approved to step into them. And that’s why we can spend a year, two, three, four years building our way into that thing. I don’t think that’s true anymore.

I think that what’s required today, and I have a young son who’s very ambitious, does a lot of work to build his own, believe it or not, personal brand, both on LinkedIn and on Instagram. He’s founded an organization. And what I’m seeing in him and his friends who are engaged similarly is that they’re recognizing that you absolutely need to pay attention to who you are and how you appear in the marketplace broadly, how you can respond to opportunities that come up, engagements with other people, chances to work with folks, chances to build something. You need to be much more focused on your training, your conditioning in a way, to use a sort of physical metaphor. You don’t know what race or obstacle you’re going to have to run going forward. So you have to be a very broad-based athlete in a way. And that’s, I think, a really huge difference.

Absolutely. Yeah, thank you. So this goes very much back to what we were talking about a minute ago, right? So the idea of the outcome ladder is a way of being very specific with yourself about some particular goal, or maybe a high stakes conversation or an interview or a project you’re working on. Being very specific with yourself about a range of possible outcomes that you will consider to be a success.

So it’s extremely tempting, back to this I’ll be happy when or if something occurs, it’s extremely tempting to say, if I don’t achieve the highest version of success for this particular event or initiative, then I’ve failed. And with that kind of pressure on yourself going into the particular event, let’s say the talk or the podcast or the interview, the pressure that you’re putting on yourself is immense. And paradoxically, it will likely lead to you being less likely to succeed and achieve some version of the outcome that you want, because you’re so focused on the home run and you’re basically swinging too hard at every pitch. And you won’t really show up as someone who is listening, present, and able to adjust and basically weather whatever comes.

So the outcome ladder is really just a mechanism to say that there’s a tiptop version of success, but what’s a little bit less than that? So maybe it’s you get a job that you want, but maybe one version less than that is, well, you don’t get the job, but you made it to the final rounds, which is very encouraging, to know that you’re showing up well. Maybe you didn’t get quite as far as you wanted to, but it was a great opportunity for you to learn more about a particular industry. Or maybe even connect with individuals that you spoke to at the company and who interviewed you, and that could be a connection that you leverage later.

And you can keep going down, basically as far down as you can think of, different versions of what success looks like, all the way down to the very bottom. And what I always say is that the bottom rung of the outcome ladder should be something that is virtually guaranteed. So in my case, I showed up today, I’m here, I’m having the conversation with you. Even if nothing I say makes sense, I’m going to walk out of here today and I will have survived, and I will have gotten through something and learned something, I’m different and I’ve built something. Just by virtue of passing through this moment.

And so if you think about the ladder as being essentially a spectrum between that sort of virtually guaranteed outcome and the, you know, we win a Nobel Prize because of our conversation today, there’s a lot in between. And that just takes the pressure off, because I know that right now, talking to you, we’ll land somewhere in the middle, and that’s fine for me, right? And it just makes me feel more present, more able to really relate and accomplish what I want to here.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we all probably are familiar with the sort of voice in our head. Right? So I’m here talking to you, but at the same time there’s a voice in the back of my head that’s listening to what I’m saying and saying, oh no, you shouldn’t have said that, that didn’t really make sense, or whatever. And you’re going to do much better in a conversation, in an interview, if you can keep that voice quiet.

So you will have done your preparation, and we can talk about that. You’re practiced in terms of what you want to say. You’ve run through your story. You’re sitting comfortably in who you are. You know that this may not be the conversation that leads to an offer and solves all your problems, but it’s going to be a useful and effective thing for you to do. So you can take a breath and be relaxed and comfortable about that. And now hopefully that critical, anxious voice in the back of your head is a little bit quieter, because it knows that just by virtue of being here and having the conversation, you’ve achieved a goal.

And that’s a way for you to make sure that you’re not second guessing every word that comes out of your mouth or every thought that comes into your head, right? You’re not going, oh, I don’t know, Ryan, he looks a little uncertain right now, maybe he’s not buying what I’m saying. Or, did they just yawn? Are they stifling a yawn? You’re not really paying attention to that, you’re just making sure that you’re showing up with the story that you want to tell. Again, having done your preparation for it, and it’s going to be good regardless, and so that voice can sit down.

So that’s kind of why I frame it that way. It’s just a way of saying, it’s going to be fine, and you don’t need to be pressuring yourself every minute in the process of actually doing the thing, whatever it is, to assess, like, is it going to work out? Is it going to work out? Am I getting there? Is the goal in sight? Just be more comfortable, more confident that the outcome is going to be some version of success for you, very likely. And if not the highest version, you’ll get through it and move on to the next.

There definitely are. And I think the key realization for someone in that position is that it is going to be something that is noticed by employers, by recruiters. It’s just a fact that some places, maybe many places, are going to be a little bit less likely to want to hire somebody who’s on the older side of the spectrum. They might be looking for someone who is likely to stay longer. Or there’s maybe a little bit of a bias, like, if I’m interviewing someone who’s 45 plus and they’re an IC, shouldn’t they be further along in their career? Like, why aren’t they? Is there some skepticism there? Or are they already kind of looking to dial it back a little bit and relax, take their foot off the gas, maybe they won’t work as hard? Like, there are all these essentially biases that go along with age that you just need to be aware of.

And it stinks. Like, if you’re someone who has worked hard your whole career and achieved what you’ve achieved, you’ve had many years of different learnings, different achievements, and now you find yourself in a spot where you need to find the next thing, it’s easy to feel angry and resentful that what you think should be a plus in your favor in terms of your candidacy for a particular job may actually be a minus. So, scream into a pillow about it for a little while. Rant to your best friend or your partner about it if you want to for a while. But then get over it, frankly, because this is just the way it is.

And the thing that you need to do to solve that is to recognize that leaning on those years of experience is actually not going to help you. And it goes back to what we were talking about before. You need to extract out of those years, and all of the roles you’ve had and the work that you’ve done, the areas where you have really built specific skills that you can enumerate in a resume or talk about in an interview. You need to be very concrete about who you are as a professional. And you can rely on the seniority in the sense of, like, I achieved ascending levels of seniority in a particular role, I was given more and more trust and authority and responsibility. I’m not saying downplay that, but make it about the contribution and the outcomes that you’ve driven, not the years. Over and over again I see people on LinkedIn, or in conversations that I have with clients or potential clients, who want to say, I’ve been doing this for 20 plus years, right? And it comes out as though this should be a huge advantage for me. And I just don’t think it is in today’s market.

Yeah, exactly. And be aware of maybe some of the biases that could be coming at you in these conversations, right? So, you’re inflexible, you’re not a hard worker, you kind of have your eye on the door because you’re thinking about retirement. Or this is a really tough one, you might be really in the thick of building a family, or building towards your kids’ future, and you need to pay a lot of attention to them, so you’re not going to be quite as available.

So don’t overindex against that, because work-life balance is important. You don’t want to work someplace that is going to be absolutely antithetical to the lifestyle that you want to have, that’s not going to be healthy. But if there’s a way for you to be clear about, hey, this is how I showed up in previous roles, my ethos is that I do what needs to get done, those kinds of ways of transforming who you are and the place you’re at in your particular life into real advantages that the employer is going to seek, that’s a way to neutralize some of that bias that might be coming at you.

Yeah. And more concretely, I think I would probably say, don’t look back more than 10, maximum 15 years. I mean, if you’ve been out in the work world for 20, 25 years, the stuff that you did 20 years ago is very, very unlikely to be relevant to a job you’re talking about now. And again, there’s an impulse, there’s an instinct to sort of rack it all up and say, look at all this stuff that I’ve done, and look how far I get.

Hey, by the way, like, I was here before there was an internet, you know? I mean, it’s interesting, and that can be a great fun conversation to have with someone. Oh, we didn’t have iPhones back then. Like, are you kidding? I mean, it’s true, it really wasn’t that long ago. And there are plenty of people in the workplace, myself included, who remember when the world was radically different.

And when you think about your own experience, you want to say, the fact that I was there and now I’m here is a huge opportunity for me to be a deep thinker, a creative thinker, to relate to people, right? Talk about that part. But forget about the I was here before the iPhone was invented part, right? And that comes back to self-awareness, which is one of the pillars. I mean, you need to notice that this is something that you’re relying on in your sense of yourself and how you present yourself to employers, and it’s not being heard the way you want it to be heard.

So I think it’s the same challenge but sort of on the other side of the experience spectrum. So what younger people need to do is they need to be able to say, here are some of the things that I have done, experiences that I’ve had, change that I’ve driven, projects that I’ve led, that embody the kinds of qualities that I know you’re looking for. So I may not have actually held a job at all, or very long, as a product manager or as a project manager or you name it. But I understand what skills are important for those roles. And let me tell you about why I have those skills. So, ways in which I have built those skills very intentionally, ways in which I feel that those skills are important and relevant in the marketplace generally and for your role. And yeah, maybe it’s something that I did when I was in college, or I did something during an internship or a personal project that I started and engaged in, and here are the results.

I mean, you can’t manufacture experience that you don’t have. But the important thing is to be able to accurately and relevantly tell someone who you are, what you can do, what you have done, in a way that is in sync with what they’re looking for, right? And so that’s why I say it’s kind of the same thing. When you’re sort of an older job seeker, what essentially you have to do is look back at all your prior experience and extract those same kind of quality skill points out of all that experience, but then bring them all up into the current conversation in a way that’s relevant to this job at this company. Same thing for someone who is maybe on the lower end of the experience scale. How did you get to who you are now? And just being really clear about that.

I think the second thing though, for people in that position, is there’s another kind of bias, right, which is that people who are younger don’t really understand what’s required in the job world. Like, you really need to be serious. Like, you’ve been messing around on social media for years, right? Or you’ve been in high school or even college, that’s not the real world, this is the real world. So I think being aware of that bias, and being able to counter that bias with whatever narratives you can provide that are essentially proof points that, no, you know what the work world is like, you’re ready to show up in a way that is committed and engaged, and here is some evidence of how you’ve done that in the past. So that’s their version of bias that they’ll need to come prepared to answer.

I’ve come to believe in the last six months particularly, I mean I think I was probably heading in this direction prior to this period, but in the last six months of doing my own work as a coach, and creating some of the material that we talked about earlier, and working with clients who are in a place of similar questions, what I’ve really come to believe is that whether it’s a job search or some other goal or progress or growth that you’re targeting for yourself, the sort of inner work that we were talking about earlier is non-negotiable.

And so there are tools, there are platforms, and you can go very deep into trying to figure out how they work and how they can work for you to achieve the goal that you have. And maybe in some cases those tools will make a big difference. I mean, certainly AI in support of content creation, resume tools etc., is a game changer. It’s really just sort of upended what’s possible for people. But my belief pretty strongly at this point is that none of that is ultimately going to work for you if you haven’t done the inner work.

And I’ll give you what may strike you as kind of an odd example. So a while back I decided that I wanted to start posting videos, really quick, hopefully very personal, connected, very practical ways of looking at particular problems. The outcome ladder, deferred satisfaction, lots of other concepts that are coming up over and over again in my coaching, and just things that I wanted to share with people. This was a brand new project for me, and the work that you have to do to do that is essentially you have to stare at yourself on video and listen to your words so closely, and you have to figure out, what do you really want to say? And what do you, as an observer, how are you judging yourself as the speaker? And it’s pretty disruptive.

But ultimately, as I continued to work through it, it had this incredible clarifying effect, and I just started to suddenly see myself maybe in a way that is more aligned with how others are seeing me. And I started to feel the ability to affect that communication, to change that communication. And I could ask myself, okay, if I want to project this kind of personality, or if I want to be known for this kind of thinking or this way of relating to people, maybe if I say these words, or say them this way. And again, they’re genuine, they’re coming from who I really am, I’m not faking, but you can have an influence on how you show up in the world.

And so I’ve really been thinking, I haven’t tried this yet, but I’m launching it here on this podcast, I’ve really been thinking that I think all of my coaching clients and really everybody should try this. You should think about something that you feel strongly about, and maybe it could be something that you’re quote unquote good at, or some goal you want to achieve, or maybe even just practicing telling your story if you’re somebody who is really young or older as a job searcher. Put yourself on video. Give yourself a time limit. Write the script essentially that you want to see yourself executing, and then do it, and then watch it, and then change it and try it again. And the first time you do it it’s very difficult, it’s hard to see, for most people, if they don’t have that kind of experience. But what I found is that after a while you kind of get used to seeing yourself in that way.

It’s a long way of saying, I think that self-awareness and mindset is going to trump tools and platforms every time. Yes, we need to be in touch with what’s going on in these environments, on LinkedIn, with the tools that are available. Yes, we need to have strategies and tactical plans that we’re executing. But that self-awareness and mindset, which can be built, can be iterated and improved and evolved through writing, through showing up on LinkedIn, through doing some videos of yourself. And it is a huge leap for a lot of people to put themselves out in the world in this way, but it’s unbelievably empowering and instructive. So none of those tools, and no coach, and no consultant by the way, is going to help you to achieve most of these goals if you yourself can’t do that work and show up differently and be self-aware and celebrate incremental progress.

So what I’m seeing now, with all of the developments that you’re talking about and more, of sort of noise and chaos out there, as there are many people in the job market and many other people trying to sell them a service, frankly, to achieve their job search goals better, the thing that ultimately makes the difference, and it’s true on LinkedIn, you can tell the people that are authentically showing up, that have done the work of thinking about who they are and what they want. It’s not negotiable.

And so maybe this is an optimistic view. Maybe the development of AI and AI-based tools pushes us to a place where we actually have to be more human, more self-aware. That the differentiator is no longer, I write well, or even, I produce good videos, or I produce good graphics, or I’m amazing at writing product briefs, or all the many things that lots of people do as part of their jobs. Maybe the thing that ultimately makes the difference is, I’m better at connecting on a human-to-human level. That when I see a video that’s created by AI, or I see a video that’s created by this person, I like this person’s video better. It feels more real, it’s more credible, I trust them more. As opposed to the video that’s maybe very polished and uses all the right words. The person who gave it to me, I don’t know them at all. So I’m kind of optimistic in a way that that’s where things go, but we’re probably in for a wild ride in between now and then.

So yeah, you’re using the outcome ladder, right? And like, you just did it just then. You were just like, yeah, so some parts are hard, and so it’s not like a 100% win every time, but there was one good thing that got said, or maybe multiple good things, and that’s something to really notice and celebrate.

And the other thing that’s a little bit astounding from time to time is, people will just sort of drop into my DMs on LinkedIn or elsewhere and completely unprompted just say, I really like what you’re putting out there. And I think they’re just doing a nice easy thing when they say that. But it’s so impactful for someone who is really being vulnerable, trying to make a connection with people, to build something, to have a relative stranger just say, this is really great, or even comment to that effect on something that you post. So coming back to a conversation we were having a minute ago, putting yourself out there so that you are in a position to receive that kind of feedback is really important, right?

The final words of wisdom are what I started with, which is basically self-awareness, mindset, and incremental change. Like, if you work on those three things, whatever your goal happens to be, you’re going to put yourself in a better position to achieve it, because you’ll be more resilient, more hopeful, more optimistic. You’ll be living more in the process and the learning of the journey that you’re on, rather than anxiously waiting and hoping against hope that the thing that you’re trying to achieve really comes true. So you’ll be happier along the way, and more likely to achieve your goals.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me again.