51. Work from the Inside Out - Design a Fulfilling Career with Tammy Gooler Loeb and Prina Shah

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hello and welcome to this episode of Ways to Change Your Workplace with myself, Preena Shama. This episode is a really good one. Get comfy and let's do this. Hello and welcome to this episode of Ways to Change Your Workplace with myself, Preenishama. And I'm really pleased to be chatting with Tammy Gula Loeb, all the way from Boston today. Welcome, Tammy.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Thank you, Preena. I'm so happy to be here with you.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Oh, it's a pleasure. I'd like to introduce Tammy to yourselves. Tammy is the author of Work from Inside Out: Breakthrough Nine Common Obstacles and Design a Career That Fulfills You. Tammy is a career and executive coach. She's a speaker and facilitator with expertise in career transitions and leadership development. Tammy's weekly podcast is called Work from the Inside Out. And it showcases career transition stories of people who have found more meaningful work. And guess what? I am on the episode number 132. So welcome, Tammy. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:10

I am good. And it's it's nice now the tables are turned. I get to answer your questions.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

And I have many, many, Tammy. So, first off, tell us a little bit about your book. What is it all about and why did you write it?

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Great. So the book is all about career transitions and the kinds of things that get in the way of people allowing themselves to step into things that they want for themselves to have more meaning and fulfillment and satisfaction in their work. So a lot of times people will get reach a certain point in their career where things are going okay. Maybe even they're going well, but there's something missing, or sometimes they're actually really unhappy. And yet they've reached a certain pinnacle where they're making a good living, or they have a family to take care of, or they feel like they've reached a certain point where maybe they're too old, or they feel like they've achieved a certain level of success. And how could they possibly go against that? Or they've put so many years into a particular career. How could they deviate from that? And they start questioning their own instincts or their own unhappiness in a way. How could they want something else? And so they try to talk themselves out of it. And yet their instincts, their inner voice, their inside is telling them something doesn't feel right. So that's why I call it inside out, work from the inside out. And the thing is, is many of us reach that point where we say, you know what, I'm ready for something else. And sometimes it's not a huge change. Sometimes it's it could be a small change, but it's something that just would be more satisfying. You know, what we want in our 20s might be very different than what we want in our 40s, for example.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

So I've been thinking about this for a long time, and I've always been fascinated by the kinds of decisions people make about their work life because we spend the better part of our adult years and our adult lives working more than we do with our families, more than we do sleeping, eating, all the other essentials in life. And yet, some people spend the better part of those years being somewhat unfulfilled, dissatisfied, or they're just tolerating something because it meets their basic needs, but it doesn't meet their greater needs. So I thought if I could share some great examples of people who found their way beyond some of those barriers to a more satisfying career, that that would be helpful to people who really want to get there.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Absolutely. And going back to your podcast where you interviewed me, you asked me some really tough and challenging questions about my history, my background, and how I got to where I am. And tell me from that conversation, it really helped me to join the dots as to why I am here today. And I did share a lot about my career change and how I have given up corporate and gone into, you know, being my own boss and my transition story. But then listening to you in relation to your book and everything that you're covering, you are talking to people who have reached a plateau in their career potentially, and people who identify with their role very strongly. And a lot of us do that. I am this, I am that. It's my personality, it is my being. So we attach ourselves to that job title. Yeah. The prestige of whatever. And then you talk about the internal career malaise, the yuck that people have internally, but then that creates that conflict with life needs. And I've got this lifestyle to lead as well. And it's just this internal dialogue that happens, which is very tormenting for an individual when you're going through such a phase of life, and when you're asking those big questions when you're working from the inside out, Tammy. So, in relation to all of the learnings, because I know you've interviewed lots of people for your book and you've done heaps and heaps of research, what kinds of personal internal barriers do people come across when examining their work life, Tammy?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Well, I love the way you asked that question because those barriers do feel personal to people. I think that's what holds them back. You know, for example, a lot of us were raised with a lot of messages about what it means to go to work, what it means to be a professional, what it means to get an education and to work hard to reach a certain point professionally. And we had either our parents or other adult role models in our lives. And so we often think that we are supposed to follow some kind of linear path. You know, you go to school, you graduate, maybe you get another higher degree, and then you follow a certain progression or kind of a linear line in a certain field, and that that is considered to be a progression towards some kind of endpoint, let's say, success, you've reached a successful point. When in fact, there may be touch points all along the way where you feel successful, and it's not always a linear path. Sometimes you go a little bit here and a little bit there, and you still reach successful touch points. Sometimes you go here or there, and then you keep going in that direction. That happens for a lot of people, but for some reason we think that if we deviate from that path or that ladder, that there's something wrong. Why am I not staying on that path? Or we question ourselves, we doubt ourselves if we start to feel restless or dissatisfied in some way. And I'm generalizing. I mean, I think there are some people who are more comfortable with change than others. So I'm not talking about everyone, but I do think I've been coaching people about their careers for over 20 years. So I'm basing these things on many, many years of experience, over a thousand clients. And I've seen this over and over again. Or some people decide, you know, I'm really just tired of the industry I'm in. Or sometimes it's a matter of market conditions that change, and people really are in a position where they have to make a change because the conditions have changed so much, their positions have become either obsolete or it's just not a good situation anymore. And yet people get concerned. Well, this is the only thing I know how to do. I'm too old to go back to school, or people worry about their age. No one will want to hire me. They worry about spending money. I have kids to put through college or university. So there's all these things that they put up these walls. I'm too old, it's too late.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Many barriers. Tammy, in relation to the barriers, your first chapter, fear. Yeah, fear, friend or foe, you've called it. When we are talking about this in relation to our career and that big conversation that we have with ourselves, yeah, expand on that concept.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Sure. So fear runs throughout the book because every barrier that we bring up is usually based on some kind of fear. We're afraid of something, right? But I address it in the first chapter because it really runs through everything. The reason why I talk about fear, friend or foe is because fear is something that we often will think about in negative terms. We're afraid of something. If we're afraid of it, it must be bad. It's a warning signal that there's danger. But sometimes what feels like fear is actually excitement and intrigue. And so sometimes we'll be curious about something, we want it really badly, and we feel this almost rumbling in our body, even. But it's so exciting, you know? And that's why I call it a friend, because that feeling of excitement or fearfulness is your friend if you think of it as a sign that maybe it is something worth taking a closer look at. No one's telling you you have to do it, but sometimes that fear is a signal that it's worth taking a closer look because there's something exciting there for you. It's a signal from the inside out telling you there's something there for you that you should be paying attention to.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

You're talking to yourself then, aren't you? Absolutely. And this is something that I term it as nervous excitement.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

So there's something brewing within you. You know there's something there. You also have the answers, but it's just that scary feeling and it's that fear of change. And the analogy I used to like, I like to bring to this, Tammy, is when we were young, or even now, sometimes people are scared of the dark. So when you look at it that way, bringing that fear of you know that change to work, it's taking a step, taking a step, taking a step, and shining a light on each step slowly, step by step, then you'll get to your end goal. So especially when you're working in this manner from your book's perspective of working from the inside out, yeah. All of the internal work is so, so hard to do, isn't it? Yeah. And then the other question I have for you, Tammy. So all of the internal work is really difficult to do for ourselves, and that's all within our power and control.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

It is, but it doesn't come as naturally sometimes because it feels uncomfortable in some ways. So that's what makes it difficult. Because if we would just stop and take a breath and let it almost speak to us, if we listen to it, we'd realize it's actually telling us something that's really in our best interest. You know, Malcolm Gladwell wrote the book Blink, and Blink talks about those sort of gut instincts. That if I'd only listened to my gut, yeah, you know, how many times have we said that to ourselves? If I had listened to my gut, I would have gone in the right direction. It's that gut instinct, that internal voice. And yet sometimes we don't listen to it because it makes us uncomfortable. It's that difficult feeling that you're talking about. And yet there's research and tons of evidence, Malcolm Gladwell points to it, that demonstrates that more often than not, those gut instincts are actually usually spot on right. It's the people who spend time overthinking and overanalyzing that end up doing something that actually isn't right for them.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Yeah, absolutely. And you're a coach, I'm a coach, consultant, all sorts. So people can self-coach as well. And there's lots of techniques there. I'll add a link in the show notes to a self-coaching guide I have and all of Tammy's details as well, because Tammy has lots of information for people. Tammy, another question I have for you, and this is talking about that internal control that we have. I'm bringing back to the workplace now. And self-work and self-development is a really important leadership skill.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Absolutely, yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yet it's still difficult for some to grasp because many still rely solely on their workplace to develop them. When we're working from the inside out on our career, what are your thoughts about just relying on my workplace to develop me and just trusting that process?

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Well, you said it right there. If we only rely on our workplaces to develop us, we're only seeing things through the lens of whatever our workplace has decided we need to learn. Now, some workplaces do ask their employees what they want to learn or what they need to know. But more often than not, they're not necessarily going to offer their employees certain kinds of opportunities to expand their career horizons that far beyond what it is that they're trying to develop them in within that particular workplace. I occasionally do hear about workplaces that do encourage their employees to even do some cross-functional learning. That's rare, but it does happen. So I would say that in terms of working on yourself, you really do have to take some of that outside of the workplace because for a couple of reasons. One is you're not going to get it in your workplace. But the other reason is you want to have the opportunity to talk to people who aren't sharing the same experience that you're having every day. Talk to friends, relatives, neighbors, people who are exposed to different industries, different types of functional roles, different organizational cultures, different sectors. Just even to understand what their work days are like. You don't even have to be that interested in what they're doing that much, just to get a sense of what are different people doing out there. I think too often we just stay in our lane and we don't take the time to just hear about what other people's experiences are day to day. I think sometimes if we just hear about what someone else is doing for a few minutes, it can shine a little bit of a light on what we're doing or how we're thinking or feeling about our work. Um, just simply by comparing and contrasting with what we hear. Some, you know, probably more often than not, you hear what someone else is up to and you think, oh, I guess I have it better than I thought I did. Indeed. Or you might say, oh, that's an interesting idea. I think I'll bring that back to my workplace. You know, sometimes you'll hear about the ways they solved a problem in another place, and you think, huh, maybe I'll look really good if I go back to my workplace and and offer up a solution like that. So too often I think when people do share stories, like friends sharing their work stories, they're often talking about what's going wrong. How about spending some time talking about what's going right? Yeah, brilliant, brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Because we're talking about the fact now, if we stick to generically speaking, this career path and this organization, there is a high chance that you will become institutionalized. And you're talking to the fact that we need to expand our echo chamber. We need to learn from others as to the good, bad, and ugly of everything else that they're working on. And then that way we can work on ourselves from the inside out to make that comparison and have that conversation with ourselves as to am I in the right place? Do I need to make the right choice, change, whatever it might be? Right. With that, then I've got another question for you. So, like you, I have a number of coaches, and some feel in a state of meh with their career, pretty much. Yeah, but they feel that they have no other option but to continue doing the same. What do you say to people in that situation?

SPEAKER_00 17:10

You know, I understand that. Sometimes when you're feeling that kind of meh, I love that word meh, but it's almost like a no man's land, so to speak, right? You know that things are they're not where you want them to be, but you don't know where you want to go. And so you feel kind of stuck, almost like you're in quicksand a little bit. Yeah. And it's hard to get unstuck. What I say to people who are in that space is take a couple of minutes and just think about a time when somebody thanked you for something that you did where you were helpful, or somebody made you feel good about something you did, an impact. A lot of times when we're feeling meh, we're also feeling like, I don't know if what I'm doing here really matters. Does anybody really care about what I'm doing? Or am I having a good effect on what I'm doing? And it may be that you're feeling meh because you're not getting a lot of feedback on what you're doing, good, bad, or otherwise. So I say, even call up an old colleague, maybe someone you don't work with anymore, and say, you know, I was thinking back to the time we worked together, and I was just wondering, what do you remember about our work together? What was I like to work with?

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

I remember when I worked with you, we had a lot of fun doing this, or you were really great at this. You can give someone else some good feedback or say, you know, I really appreciated this about you. I I'm just wondering, what was I like to work with? It might sound a little bit like you're asking for compliments, but I think you can be more transparent than that and say, I'm trying to get a good grasp on what my own brand might be or what my flavor might be, you know, in terms of who I am in the workplace. And so I'm talking to people who I've worked with to see what they might say, you know, what would be one or two words that you might come up with when you think about what I'm like to work with. Now it might feel a little uncomfortable asking people those questions, but I would say think of somebody that you trust, you know, that you really trust that you feel comfortable with. I think if you get a couple of people who you trust to give you that kind of feedback, you're going to get some really nice answers that resonate with you. And you're going to start to lift out of that meh. And you're going to start to realize, yeah, I do have something to offer here. I do make a difference. And maybe there's some things I can do a little differently to give other people feedback and start to build on that exchange a little bit, you know, because I think sometimes when we're feeling meh, we're probably not giving a whole lot to the situation either.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Correct, correct. Things that I asked my coaches in relation to that meh state one day, you know, should I stay or should I go? Question, what have you achieved? What do you yet have to achieve? How long is it going to take you? Because we all have our personal goals, desires, and we are attached to our jobs often. So that's why that conflict really happens, also, doesn't it? Tammy, when you were talking, you mentioned um professional brand. That's a really important point because our professional brand continues to evolve as we evolve through our career.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

We need to continue maintaining our work on that, also, then. Brilliant. And I know that you have spoken with lots of people and you've learned from lots of people in your book as well, which is full of information. Are there any practical tips that you have for people who are in such a quandary?

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Yes. Number one, don't do it alone. If you're really serious about making a change. Now I know that you have two coaches talking to one another right here, but don't do it alone. That doesn't mean you have to hire a coach. I think hiring a coach is a great idea, don't you, Prina? Hiring a coach is obviously a great idea, but I think there are a lot of other things that you can also do to get support if you're looking to make a change. My reason for saying that is that if you are in any kind of a state of stress around this, it's so easy to get caught up inside your own head, inside your own situation, and you lose perspective very easily. And when I say you, I mean we. We all do. So don't do it alone. Talk to other people about what they might have done when they made a change, or start to think about who else you can speak with to get. Some fresh ideas. And don't expect it to happen overnight. Yeah, it's a long process. Right. Most changes do not happen overnight. If you read my book, you will see that most of the people I profile took some time to plan what they were going to do and how they went about doing it. They had a vision for what they were doing. And then they enacted a plan. Some things worked out great. Some things evolved over time. Sometimes they took two steps back, a couple steps forward, but they're very realistic stories of where people were and how they ended up in places where they wanted to be. Some of them moved through several places they wanted to be. And then as their careers evolved, they were then ready to move to another place they wanted to be. Because some of these are stories that start out with people being very young all the way through to mid-career and later career. So I say very practically, don't do it alone. Don't do anything too radical unless you feel like you're in a really toxic situation. If you are and it's really bad for your mental health, that's a whole different situation. But otherwise, don't just pick up and leave without having at least a safety net of some type. I think it makes sense to take care of the practical matters of life first. But saying that doesn't mean that you can't take care of yourself and be happier while still taking care of those things, too.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Absolutely. I don't know if you've read a book called The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by a modern-day philosopher called Alain De Botin. Brilliant, brilliant book. We have not, no. You must. And I'll add uh details about it in the show notes as well. Anyhow, spoiler alert, drum roll, we all die. We all have an end. I think that book really opened my eyes to the fact that our time on this planet is limited. And when we are spending so much time at work, like you said, more time at work during the working day than we do with our loved ones. This has to be your impetus for change. If you have that meh feeling, if there's something bubbling in you, do something, address it rather than just putting a box on that lid, putting a box on that lid, because eventually you are going to explode like a volcano, and the people around you will feel it the worst. You take it home.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Right. I want to add to that actually, very important for those of you listening who might be working parents. How many of us as parents want our children to be happy and fulfilled in their lives? If we are not showing them what it's like to be a happy and fulfilled working professional or working person, you don't have to be Mother Teresa and you don't have to be getting the Nobel Peace Prize either. I'm not talking about that. But we can't tell our children we want them to be happy if we are not at least attempting to reach for that ourselves. We can model for them also what it's like when we are trying to create that kind of happiness or reach for that kind of happiness. It doesn't mean that we have to look perfect to them because perfection actually doesn't exist, other than in our mind's eye. So I always say this to parents because I've watched parents exhaust themselves, killing themselves to drive the nice cars, have the nice houses, take the nice vacations, and yet they work themselves into the ground. They're hardly ever home with the kids. And this is the model that the kids get. This is what they think it means to be successful. And I've seen a lot of unhappy people run their lives that way.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Yeah, not a good lesson to pass down. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

No, Tammy, I've got one final question for you.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

If I was to hand you a magic wand, what is one way that you, Tammy, would change the way of the workplace?

unknown 26:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

I think the one way that I would change the workplace is to really instill a culture of leadership up, down, and across the entire organization. That doesn't mean a flat organization necessarily, but a way in which everybody is nurtured and empowered in some form of leadership because that means that you're bringing about more of a growth mindset, and you're also having expectations that everybody in the organization is responsible for the health, the well-being, and the growth of the organization. It's not just in the hands of the senior people, it's in everyone's hands. And I think that that builds a much stronger organization.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Thank you so much for this, Tammy. Until the next time.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Thank you. This is a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

If you want to meet great thinkers who stand against crappy workplace cultures, lousy leaders, and toxic teams, then you need to join the Ways to Change Your Workplace Facebook group, which is linked in today's show notes. I will see you in the next episode. Bye for now.