Career-Defining Moments

What is sustainable work? I'm here to help and I've teamed up with fellow career coach Brian Klindworth to chat openly and vulnerably about some of the trends (and big feelings) we're seeing right now and how you can be ok, even in times of intense change and challenge.

Sustainable work requires you to design a career and life that you don’t want to escape from. In this episode we unpack courage, life design, flexibility and lots more things that impact your work and relationship with yourself. We also share plenty of example of when things totally broke down and we knew we needed to change things and redesign our work. How we work is just as important as what we do.

Some of the things we cover:

• What is life and career design?
• Continuous career transition and knowing when and how to pivot
• Signals that your current work (and life) are not sustainable
• How to move the dial when you’re feeling unbalanced and unhappy
• Building up courage to change
• What you’re willing to do and what boundaries to set up and protect
• Financial impact of sustainable career decisions
• How to have courageous conversations to help you grow your career options
• Flexibility and how it feeds into career planning and career design
• Spotting toxic work situations and how to get out of them
• The power of a soft landing job and backup funds to give you healthier career choices
• How sleep impacts your productivity and happiness

Resources:

The world sure is a strange and interesting place to live and work in right now! I've spoken to a lot of people lately who are battling a range of feelings about work and career, and many of them are driven by fear, worry and uncertainty. But I'm here to help and I've teamed up with fellow career coach Brian Klindworth to chat openly and vulnerably about some of the trends (and big feelings) we're seeing right now and how you can be ok, even in times of intense change and challenge.

Some of the things we cover:

• Healthy boundaries
• The exhaustion we’re seeing in some of our clients at the moment
• How life and career design works and can help you
• Sustainable work and career building
• Listening and honouring what we want
• What it means to never outsource responsibility
• The powerful feedback pain and resistance can provide us with.

Resources:

Career-Defining Moments is celebrating it's first birthday, can you believe it!

In this short chat I'm celebrating the 28 episodes and amazing guests from season 1 and 2, plus sharing with you the exciting things coming up in season 3.

Need some help with your career plan? Book a free call with me or download the free career checklist here: https://thebridgecoaching.com.au/

Books mentioned:

Karalee Gault started her career working in a small family business with her parents, but had aspirations to go more into leadership or teaching flavoured roles. She then went on a ‘trial and error’ mission to work for a range of different organisations before she landed in working for herself. Her true career passion is to support others with neurodivergence to create systems and processes in both their business and broader life.

Some of the things we cover:

· Finding a career space that you feel like you fit in

· Carving out a career path to work around you and your family

· Outlining your own values and non-negotiables

· The many things you learn when working for a family business

· Finding ways to keep growing and leveling up at work

· Benefits and challenges in working for smaller size businesses

· Stumbling on a valuable business niche by accident

· Working with your neurodivergence rather than against it

· Not shaming yourself for how you get powerful results

· Leaning on systems to help you get things out of your head

· Actively doing small tweaks to keep improving how we work as teams and individuals

· Criteria for job alignment and building your exit plan

· Being creative AND using systems to have more fun in your business       

Karelee’s top career tips:

1. Do something you’re passionate about (it’s never just about the money) and spend time to uncover your passion if you don’t know what that is.
2. You can find joy in anything you choose.
3. Keep working on yourself, personal development never stops.

Resources:

Get ready for an amazing chat with Karin Hammarberg, a registered nurse with 20 years’ experience as clinical co-ordinator of IVF programs. She knew from early childhood that she wanted to be a midwife and ‘cuddle babies all day long’ and her career path started as a nurse before she trained in midwifery. Her years on the clinical side got her curious about always keeping the patients care at the core, balanced with the best practice clinical care and research.

One of her first career-defining moments came when the first IVF baby was born in Sweden, and this changed her career trajectory and eventually took her from Sweden to Australia to continue both her work and studies.

Karin’s true passion is to give patients a voice and understand the complex problems around reproductive health and ultimately ask better questions. Her research focuses on two simple, yet complex questions “Where is the problem?” and “What can we do to help?” and she’s keen to make research in the reproductive and infertility field accessible and understandable for anyone. Her own focus on learning, critical thinking and growth has no doubt helped her build her own career path and help develop team members as well.

Her work and PhD addresses the psychosocial aspects of infertility and infertility treatment, and in 2010 she also authored a book called “IVF and Beyond for Dummies”. Karin now spends most of her time in the health promotion and education field focusing on reproductive health.

Some of the things we cover:

·       The value of becoming a student again as an adult with significant work experience

·       Leaning into new things and jumping onboard even if you don’t know

·       True curiosity and evolving our practice and work with new evidence being presented

·       Culture shock of moving from one country to another whilst staying in a similar role in the same professional field

·       The power of timing to be in the right place at the right time

·       Listen to your gut feel when you are ready for a new opportunity

·       Translating technical medical research into content and frameworks anyone can understand

·       Writing a book and learning to simplify things

Karin’s top career tips:

1.     Be openminded and keep your eyes open for change 

2.     Jump onboard, even if it’s risky and give yourself the opportunity

3.     Don’t just wait, but actively create those career opportunities for yourself

Resources:

Get ready for an honest and heart-warming chat with Nina Berg about her career journey and sober journey. She really wanted to be an actress when she was a child, but her career journey took her into the field of education instead.

In this very honest conversation she opens up about the denial and anxiety she grew up with and the big turning point for her when her father passed away at age 52 due to alcoholism related illness.

Nina is a true believer that you can own your life and career journey in a positive way and she shares her sober journey and how she was able to turn a difficult upbringing into a light and positive impact in the world today. Her career mission now is one of courage and joy and helping people to find a path through addiction and ultimately live happy, sober and balanced life.

Some of the things we cover:

·       Looking like you ‘have it all’ on the surface but not feeling like you belong.

·       Learning from non-constructive feedback

·     Her sober journey and how it changed her life and career

·       What to do when you experience strong values clashes at work and finding your way forward

·       How crying and being emotional at work can be a superpower

·       Balancing your relationship during a career change and relocation

·       Finding courage to change even when you don’t have all the answers

·       Working out what kind of leader you want to work for and with

·       Being the voice of causes and people who need your support

·       Finding the balance between fear and courage

·       Following your mission to pay good things forward

·       Releasing negative emotions in. a healthy way to move forward

·       Courage is something we can practice and grow

·       Listen to your heart and what you really want to be

·       Waiting will not change anything – you need to take action

Nina’s top career tips:

1.     Do the things you love to do, dare to test things and then move on

2.     Speak to your manager so they know what’s going on for you.

3.     Educate yourself, learn something new, take action.

Resources:

This wonderful conversation with Despina Karatzias unpacks her true passion for joy, helpfulness and contribution.

Early in her life, she had a dream to go into acting, but instead she briefly explored social work, only to realise it was not quite right for her. At age 18 her passion for small business and tourism started to form and this is still where she spends most of her professional focus and energy today.

 Join us in this honest and eye opening conversations about the many career-defining moments that took her to the work she does these days!

Some of the things we cover:

·     Lessons of self-care and literally running a marathon during the pandemic.

·     Leaning into being different and exploring different things to find you path.

·     Starting your career out to learn as much as you can across the business

·     Where her love for small business began

·     Managing people and learning how to manage the conflicts that can come from this

·     Noticing a need for formal training and stepping up to put yourself through the (formal) learning that you need

·     Reflecting on the fact that “sometimes I am my own problem”, and taking ownership to unlock what’s next in your career

·     Creating healthy boundaries and learning the importance of emotional intelligence (sometimes, the hard way)

·     Working out how your role contributes to the bigger picture of the organisation and the community

·     Finding your voice and taking action when something is a clear ‘no’

·     Honestly look at what’s working and what’s not and make sure to get help to get out of that (all too common) funk

·     Don’t wait for someone to give you permission to grow, but take responsibility for your own learning.

 Despina’s top career tips:

1.   Follow the fire in your belly, be in tune to what your reaction and follow that. Say ‘yes’ more and go out of your comfort zone weekly.

2.  Networks and get in the room with the right people. Actively lean in and step up.

3.  Get yourself out there, believe in something and use your voice to share it.

Resources:

Join this eye-opening conversation around smashing plateaus, non-linear career progression and a great deal of vulnerability! David Shriner-Cahn’s childhood led him to crave more freedom and control over his own path. He started out in engineering (something that was strongly encouraged by his family), but when he was made redundant in one of his first corporate jobs, despite performing well in his role, he changed paths and has never looked back.

David generously shares his winding career story and some of the career-defining moments that have led him from the corporate world, via the not-for-profit sector to his own consulting business.

Some of the things we cover:

· How to refocus after losing a job and coping with any shame after being fired

· The power of ‘off time’ in your working week

· Learning painful lessons early on in your career about business, profitability and processes

· The practise of setting clear life and career goals through a personal development practice

· Finding a process for how you approach and map out your working life and coming back to it whenever you need to

· How to create healthy and practical space to have a sabbatical in your career

· Daring to convince someone to hire you and give you a chance

· Using proposals, rather than a CV or resume to pitch yourself and the value you bring

· Building alternatives and always having a plan B (and C)

· The value and vulnerability in sharing your own story

· Setting up a consulting business after your corporate or not-for-profit career

· Smashing the plateau and levelling up

David’s top career tips:

1: Make sure you have multiple sources of revenue and income

2: Have a plan B (and C) ready, so you can deal with all types of things that may come up

3: Connect with your professional community – talk to others who have experienced the same things you’re now going through

Resources:

This chat with Natasa Denman is full of leadership lessons, action taking and using your voice to position yourself for career growth.

She stared out studying psychology and then worked for a big chunk of her career in management roles across the optical industry. But when her husband lost the business they ran, she needed to find another path quickly as her family’s livelihood depended on it.

In this powerful chat she shares how she started her own business, wrote her first book and scaled the business very quickly from there. The pandemic turned out to be a huge disruption, but also a great opportunity as she had 70 face-to-face events cancelled in an instant and needed to completely refocus how her services are delivered.

Some of the things we cover:

· How she did a major career pivot when her husband lost his business

· The power of making fast decisions and sticking to them

· Her belief that ‘When the student is ready, the master/teacher does appear’

· Writing a book to build credibility ‘get a business card on steroids’.

· Building a business and growing your family at the same time (boobs, babies and business!)

· The power of continuing to invest in learning, documenting what you learn and pass it onto others.

· Leaning on processes and applying consistency for impressive business results

· How she did not watch TV for 3 years to instead spend time on studying and scaling her business.

· Leveraging routines and managing your time to create results.

· How to perform when ‘your back is up against the wall’

· Be ready to take action (based on what you know) and start making new decisions.

· Choose your focus and make sure to get the return on investment.

Natasa’s top career tips:

· 1: Make fast decisions and stick to them, every beginning is hard.

· 2: How can you bring the fun into what you are doing and suit your life?

· 3: Never stop learning.

Resources:

A truly action-packed episode with lots of sliding door moments and hands on career tips!

Glenn Watson wanted to be a scientist as a kid (move over David Attenborough!) and had every intention of getting deeper into science at university, but instead had a (pre)career defining moment and a connection that got him into business management and communications.

Key themes cross Glenn’s career has been deliberate career planning and following a data driven approach. This focus took him to a head of marketing role by the age of 28 only to then pivot into something completely different. In this open and honest chat, we unpack failure, courage to move backwards before you move forward and how his career has unfolded.

Some of the things we cover:

· The powerful sliding doors moment that completely changed the start of his career path from science to marketing

· Sense checking new career opportunities against your plan

· Avoiding shiny career objects

· The steps he took to completely change his career

· The role of luck, opportunity and preparation to grow your career significantly

· Career re-set and changing lanes to a new field and taking one (or five) steps back

· Being proactive in significantly quickening the progress of career goals

· Taking on new roles with the objective to learn and then add new steps to your plan

· Striving for excellence whilst not being crushed by work demands and pressure

· Removing yourself from pressure and overwhelm to work out what you need to do next

· Coping with feelings of failure and ‘mental bruises’

· Unpacking what it means that “you either win or learn”

· The power of being data driven in career and life and make better decisions

Glenn’s top career tips:

· 1 You can’t improve what you don’t measure.

· 2 Without data you’re just a person with an opinion. Meaningfully interpreted data

· 3 You win or you learn. Learn, courage and growth.

Resources:

Andrew MacAskill really wanted to be a sports journalist when he was a kid, but actually ended up doing a finance degree and working in accounting. In hindsight he knows that he was seeking approval rather than fulfilment when he made that decision, but it thankfully opened the door to the world of business and paved the way for many career pivots to come. 

The key themes across his career have been to guide people and hone in on communication. Bottom line his focus and mission is to end career-based misery. You don't want to miss this chat!

Some of the things we cover:

· Receiving tough feedback from leaders and acting on it

· Untangling our career/role from our identity

· Using self-awareness to grow your career

· Pick a leader, not a job!

· Working for leaders you need rather than the ones you necessary want

· The 90-day dip we experience in a new role

· Welcoming opportunities that scare you, but will teach you lots

· Make career decisions with your head, heart, wallet.

· Failing and Ego correcting when things don’t go to plan

· Being completely blind-sided by business restructures and losing your job overnight

· Grieving processes when you lose a job

· Dare to make decisions that make sense for you, even when they don’t make sense to everybody else

Andrew’s top career tips:

· 1. Always be ready to go: update CV and Linked In ongoing (ideally quarterly).

· 2. Align who you are with what you do.

· 3. If you’re in job misery in exchange for job security, you need to start making some moves.

Resources:

Analiza's sweet spot is organisation and efficiency, whilst always keeping people at the heart of every process and giving them the tools to thrive. 

She actually wanted to be a doctor as a kid, but her diverse career background actually started out in the U.S. air force! She then following the career exploration thread via branding and marketing, via the not-for-profit (education) sector to now mainly focus on executive coaching and helping leaders of colour develop and thrive. Analiza's passion for organising things and finding efficiency shines through in this chat, as well as her mission to help people understand themselves and thrive through self-reflection. 

We cover:

· Amazing and inspiring leadership lessons

· Career experimentation and seeking your career ‘north star’

· Finding your sweet spot for your mission fit and leveraging your skillset

· The balance of comfort, courage and wanting change

· Finding the learning edge in discomfort

· Going ‘through’ rather than going ‘around’ to reach our goals

· Identify a need you see in the world and create resources to address this (and don’t overthink it!)

· Recognising that loyalty can sometimes hold us back: you can be loyal and leave!

· Helpful ways to belong in the workplace

Analiza's top career tips:

1) Find your community (mentor and people who align with your values)

2) Get to know yourself as much as you can

3) Life is a whole life, work is not everything

Resources:

This episode is a wonderful journey across strategy, sisterhood, career exploration and meaningful impact. Lindsey Brown is not only one of my best friends, but also an absolute powerhouse of a woman with a passion for social justice, diversity and helping people. She has worked across a range of industries and continents (including running her own business) with a wealth of career moments and pivots to share. In this chat we cover how she went from childhood aspirations of being either a nun, a lawyer or a diplomat to now setting strategic direction and leveraging technology to solve big picture challenges. 

Some of the things we cover:

· Learn to be flexible and pivot and reposition

· How to leverage being the only one of your kind in some professional rooms

· The people who shape our career (both positive and negative)

· Seeing and acknowledging people at work

· Respecting people’s time and space at work

· Experiencing discrimination and bullying in the workplace

· The power of a soft-landing job to build confidence

· How to learn from non-constructive leaders

· Understanding what might impact performance at work

· Definitions of success and career chapters

· The power of time bound career goals

· Perfectionism and managing the inner critic

Lindsey’s top 3 career tips:

1) You are the owner of your career!

2) If you’re not happy with what you see, you need to do something about it.

3) Better aim high and miss, than aim low and hit. Have a go and push yourself!

Resources:

In this wonderful chat with Louise Hopkin we unpack her very diverse career and ongoing exploration of trying new things. She shares her take on how you can find your own way when you’re the odd one out in your family and dare to try a range of different careers and never feeling like you quite belong in one specific profession. Her career path from hospitality and travel via small business ownership to the corporate world is full of courage, vulnerability and inspiration. We also unpack what it really takes to simply take one step at a time to unlock what's next and how she landed in her passion of helping people organise their home and get rid of clutter!

Some of the things we cover:

· Confidence

· Being the ‘odd one out’ in your family

· What to do when you’re asking “what’s wrong with me?”

· Becoming good at something and then immediately looking for the next challenge

· How becoming a parent really changed her discovering life and career alignment

· How a career fits into the rest of your life

· Potential conflicts with your partner to lean into your next career chapter

· Using self-talk to improve your own situation

· Daring to try a bunch of things to see what you actually like

· Being honest with yourself, especially when it’s hard

·

Louise’s top 3 career tips:

1. Listen to your intuition and your gut.

2. Don’t be afraid to try things and give it a go. The worst thing that could happen is that you don’t like it.

3. Don’t fight who you are or try to be someone you’re not.

Resources:

In this wonderful chat with Joe Pane, we talk about his beautifully winding career path and finding his path from a sterile lab environment at university to working with people. He did not know as a young adult how he would make that happen, but his ability to keep leaning into faith instead of fear opened up some doors that he never would have imagined.

Joe shares his personal experience across a range of corporate roles to now working with people in building emotional fitness.

We cover:

· Our complicated (human) relationship with uncertainty

· Listening to the signals and feedback when we need to change paths

· Why the motivation to move away from what we don’t want is usually the strongest driver for change

· Spotting disengagement and supporting people (giving them permission even) to follow their dream!

· How to frame a healthy conversation around a career break with your boss

· The impact you can have on others at work and in life because of how you’re showing up

· Doubting yourself (yes, it’s human!) and still listening to your gut to guide how far you need to go

· Reframing the concept of ‘being in the right place’

· Welcoming higher quality problems in the future

· Collective fear and how they impact company decisions

Joe’ top 3 career tips:

· 1) Be loyal to your values.

· 2) Find and environment that you belong in (not fitting in)

· 3) Regardless of the culture – always be respectful and kind (hold healthy boundaries). Become an example of what you want to see in the world!

Resources:

Chris Kerrisk has been fascinated with the art of business for most of his life. Early in his life he went from wanting to be a doctor and be like his dad, but then quickly went from lab coat to concrete pouring to open up his options and pick a new path. His career journey has led him to the dynamic field of business and digital technology via a range of commercial roles including project management. He now runs an innovative business where listening to customers and transforming their life through technology is at the heart of every day at work.

We cover:

· Learn from past (potentially negative) business experiences and not give up

· Building our business and future with learnings from our parents’ career journey

· The importance of transparency, communication and true stakeholder management, including risk management.

· The complexity and creativity of the art of business

· What it means to genuinely improve the customers lives

· How to take a great idea/technology and apply it differently to add more value

· Digital start-ups and tech momentum

· What disruption really means

· Staying humble through success and not letting your ego run wild

· The 3 core business principles he lives by every day

Chris’ main business principles:

1. Ensure you live by good for people and planet

2. Be disruptive

3. Commercially sustainable (healthy) business

Chris’ top 3 career tips:

1. Set career and life goals

2. Find your passion

3. Never give up and never give in

Resources:

Gemma is a natural problem solver with a passion for communication and powerful outcomes. She’s spent the bulk of her career to date in media advertising, a field that plays to her strengths, but not one she clearly knew she wanted to go into.

In this chat we cover a range of examples of what it actually means to show up as your whole self at work and how to find your niche and grow within it. We also cover a few reflections around feelings of imposter syndrome and coping with those times in life where it was just not the right fit and how to find the best way of moving on.

We cover:

· The power of informal mentorship and honest feedback

· Taking a travel or career break after you’ve built up a good reputation in your industry

· Feeling the strong need to prove ourselves at work

· Keeping your options open early on in your career

· Having a healthy framework in terms of the right or wrong fit and the ability to move on and let things go

· The power of staying in one place and growing there

· Coping with ‘failing’ and not being able to solve a problem

· Taking personal responsibility for business decisions or lack of support

· Imposter syndrome

· Making decisions when you don’t have all the information

· Having strong self-awareness on how we come across to others

· Embracing the messiness and challenges that it can mean to work around your family and kids

· Asking valuable questions to grow your career and contribute to the business’ commercial bottom line

Gemma’s top 3 career tips:

1. Define your role and what you can control + communicate that with others clearly

2. Embrace the messiness – bring your whole self to work

3. Figuring out what people will pay you for (things you enjoy and what people will pay you for)

Resources:

In this short episode I unpack the 5 key themes that came through during season 1 of the podcast. 

1. Take care of yourself and practice self-awareness. Burnout and bore out.
Ask yourself: How well am I looking after my well-being?

2. Ask for help and nurture your networks. Mentoring, community and networking. Someone else has been where you are now, and they can help you move forward.
Ask yourself: Who could I reach out to this month?

3. Keep investing in yourself and your learning and growth – push your comfort zone and stay curious and humble. You are always learning and that’s exciting.
Ask yourself: What’s my next learning goal (professional or other)?

4. Choose your company and boss carefully – culture, values, role, manager, team, way of working
Ask yourself: How aligned am I with this current/future role, company and leader?

5. Own your career path and communicate your value and plan as clearly as you can. Do the best you can with your current resources to improve your chances for success (even if that definition changes)
Ask yourself: What would I like to do next? What general direction excites me?

Mark Latham describes his core career themes as serendipitous and unfinished. In this powerful conversation he shares both his personal and professional journey from corporate roles and tech start-ups across the world to a fully remote way of working in the customer success space. We also talk about how he took some difficult and negative feedback early in his career to carve out a path and working to his strength. 

We cover:

· Leaving a role without having anything else lined up

· The power of a break between roles to plan our career future

· Taking a risk on yourself and backing yourself

· Making big career decisions together with your partner or spouse #datenight

· Taking a pay cut to travel and pivot into something new

· Key learnings from his time in tech start-ups

· Expanding your role by showing initiative and looking for improvement

· Working smart (not long hours) to generate impact

· Knowing the signs when you need to start thinking of moving on to another role

· How to manage conflict with leadership

· Truly effective communication

· Taking negative feedback and turning it into something valuable

· Powerful and effective communication

· Customer success

· Gratitude for the career opportunities that come our way

Mark’s top career tips

1. Communication is your responsibility. Continue to improve and finesse it.

2. Patience.

3. Listen and tune into what’s going on around you at work and in life.

Resources:

Is now a good time to make a career change? How do I know if I’m ready?

Caroline describes herself as ‘an extreme career changer’ with a broad and amazing background across arts and music, banking, media, recruitment as well as consulting. In this episode Caroline and Emmy unpack all things career change, including some of the things that are especially important to employers and recruiters to really help you shine in your future job interviews.

We cover:

· Being open to trying different things when your career is starting to feel where it’s no longer the right fit

· How to go from a successful corporate career (earning 6 figures in a manager role) to exploring her passion for arts and music earning 3 figures

· Making joint family decisions when it comes to career change

· Demystifying and understanding the ‘black box of recruitment’

· How to get in front of the right people to get an opportunity for a career pivot

· Putting yourself in the managers or recruiters shoes and understanding the problem they are looking to solve

· Multi passions and how to foster and showcase them

· The similarities between recruitment and dating

· How to shine in a job interview

· Running a business on your own terms

· How to check in with yourself and reflect on your definition of success and including that in your career plan

· Taking smaller steps to research and experiment with your career options and next steps

Caroline’s top career tips

1. The right timing to change careers is your hands. Your internal readiness trumps market conditions any time.

2. Now is the best time to … [sit back/reflect/go for it]. Listen to your gut and trust your decision.

3. Do smaller experiments to help you with the bigger change.

Resources:

Truly embracing change can be difficult, but it’s a vital part of career development!

In this jam packed episode I chat with Anders Bouvin about some of his key learnings across his long and impactful career with Handelsbanken, one of the largest Scandinavian banks with operations across the world. He’s held senior management positions as General Manager in New York, CEO in Denmark and the U.K before his final position before retirement as President and Group CEO.

Some of the things we cover:

· The importance of cultural compatibility with the company you choose to work for

· How to embrace change and find meaningful career opportunities

· The importance of interviewing your (future) boss as much as they interview you

· When it comes to change, we tend to overestimate the difficulty and underestimate the advantages

· Not falling in the trap of trying to micro plan your career

· The benefit of value based vs. rule based organisations

· Trusting staff and letting them get on with doing a great job

· The key role of mentors

· Trusting your instincts when saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to career opportunities

Anders’s top career tips

1. Embracing change and actively look for opportunities to progress in your career

2. Avoid microplanning your career

3. Make sure to choose your boss

Resources:

Linda Mueller is very passionate about creating connection and following opportunities that present themselves. Her career unexpectedly took her from ‘the best job she’s ever had in the U.S. in the corporate world over to Japan (in more than one trip) for a whole new experience.  She now works to support the accompanying partner for expats who relocate or repatriate back to their home country.

We cover:

· When the heart and head is in direct conflict about a big decision

· Studying abroad at every chance you get

· Learning to ask for help when you’re naturally self-sufficient and independent

· Finding the right mentors to guide your life and career decisions

· Filtering people’s opinions and advise

· The perspective of a holiday or career break

· Why we overwork and try so hard to prove ourselves

· Following your strengths and stumbling on something that’s valuable to others

· Expat life and adjusting to life in a new culture

· Triggers or challenges that may come with being a career driven expat wife and partner

· Motherhood as a type A personality

· Expat partner support and career building across cultures

· Personal growth and unpacking our deeper challenges

· Self-care and endurance

Linda’s top career tips

1) Ask for help – it will make your life easier

2) Listen – you will learn so much and it will help you grow relationships

3) Take care of yourself. Don’t get trapped in endurance

Resources:

Tracey Beard has found her career purpose in helping young adults find the right career choice for them. In this episode Tracey shares how she ran away from home and joined the military to help her fulfil the dream of getting a university degree. She shares her inspiring and challenging career journey which included:

• dragging herself through 3 years of university 
• spending 15 years in the military, which included some amazing leadership and growth opportunities
• moving her young family from New Zealand to the Middle East for over 10 years and ultimately finding a career (and 'her people') that was her true calling

We cover:

· How to finding what lights you up at work

· Working with your adults on crafting their career path

· The power of a gap year and working out how best to structure it

· Not settling for the old thinking that “you should be happy to have a job”

· Crafting a career that works for you

· Investing in you, building your career and working it around your family

· Leaning into your strengths and fully listening to your intuition

· Building trust with young adults and teenagers to help them work out their path

· Using intuition whilst also being solutions focused

· Finding tools, purpose and structure for parents to guide their young adults

· Being around people who ‘get you’ and where you can naturally be yourself

· Certain circumstances and situations can lead us to want to change everything, when what we really need might be a different leader or another type of organisation.

· Dare to ask for opportunities and add new skills to your bow

· Leveraging and valuing leadership by example

· Learning to ask for help from others (“you can’t see the label when you’re in the jar!”)

Tracey’s top career tips:

1. Self-awareness is your path to success. Know how to adapt, where to focus and where your strengths are.
2. Ask for help and learn to be confident to do so. It’s brave and helps you get unstuck.
3. Keep maintaining your curiosity to learn. About work, yourself or the world around you.

Resources:

Jodi Rosenthal is such a wonderful example of someone who decided to own and drive her career (and learned a lot in the process)! In this episode we unpack her varied and inspiring career to date across sales, tech start-ups, large corporates and more recently people and culture. We unpack how stay positive, dare to have difficult conversations and continue building your tribe.

We cover:

• Being a ‘unicorn’ where businesses may struggle to label at fit you into their structure
• Embracing servant leadership through listening, emotional intelligence and true empathy in the workplace
• The power of the pause and working with a career coach to unlock next steps
• Supporting a team through pandemic challenges
• Workplace culture check and finding the right fit
• Integrating and landing in a new country as an expat
• Authenticity and fully being who you are in the workplace and in life
• Addressing toxic positivity and framing challenges in a realistic and helpful way in the workplace
• Authentic sales conversations and connection
• Being made redundant, working through professional limbo and reinventing yourself in a new professional setting
• Healthy boundaries and leaving a role that’s not right for you
• Falling into a role and finding yourself in a career you did not necessary choose
• Value and self-worth
• Having tough conversations at work
• Take responsibility and shape your professional future
• Coping with change and uncertainty when this is not something you naturally thrive in
• Tap into your personal and professional network for support, growth and mental well-being
• Imposter syndrome, self-worth and awareness of all the challenges that can come out at work
• Career chapters, knowing when to leave and allowing a career break (and even taking up golf)
• Working out your skills AND what you enjoy the most to find flow at work
• Social justice, impact and living your values at work
• Learning from challenging leadership experiences and learning first-hand what not to do
• Daring to jump in and figure things out as you go along
• Listening to constructive feedback from family and loved ones
• Looking for red flags and learnings and daring to take action quickly
• Start-up creativity and trying different things
• Having healthy ongoing dialogue about performance with your manager or HR/P&C leader

Jodi’s top career tips:

1. Nurture and build your support network (both professional and personal)
2. Take control of your own career. Hold people accountable and take action when needed.

Resources:

Listen in as Heather Jean and I unpack confidence, curiosity and vulnerability and how it affects our careers, the corporate world and our personal life. Heather has a wealth of experience as a trainer in the corporate world and shares how her curiosity took her all over the world. She also shares how she came across burlesque as a hobby and how that bloomed into a business during lockdown. 

We cover:

· Building unshakable confidence

· Labels, titles and identity in our career space

· Passion, courage and vulnerability

· Endless curiosity and asking more questions

· Trust and rapport building for introverts and extroverts

· Organisational psychology and people’s behaviours

· Traveling the world through her career, but realising it was not that glamorous

· Truly listening to your clients, stakeholders and co-workers to fully understand their needs

· Using cabaret, burlesque and aerial performance to build confidence and express yourself

· Listening to your inner voice to guide career decisions

· Pushing past tears, fear and discomfort to find and own your place in the spotlight

· The fear of being seen and holding your space

· How to deal with imposter syndrome and shrinking yourself (especially for women)

· Earning money from your hobby

· Starting a new online business during the pandemic to support other women

· Shadow work, un-helpful beliefs and avoidance and how to move past it

· Fitting in, being liked and understanding how it can limit us

· What support and advise family and friends can provide vs. a counsellor or coach

· Limiting beliefs around self, money and careers

· Forgiveness and reconciliation with family and the beliefs you grew up with

· Gradually pushing your comfort zone to grow your career

· Playfulness, fun and creativity whilst also allowing difficult things to come up

· Listening to intuition and gut feeling to make powerful career decisions

Heather’s top 3 career tips:

1) Lean into your strengths. Understand yourself and see the true value you bring.

2) Control the controllable and let the rest go. Focus on what you can do.

3) Always be curious!

Resources:

Michelle Frosts’ career story highlights how you can truly live the values of adventure and freedom in your life and career, even when you have 5 kids! She shares the moment when she knew she needed to step away from her the 9 to 5 job and be her own boss. She also shares how she went from being a teacher at a particularly difficult school to teaching small business owners about moving into the online world and now coaching mindfulness, movement and overall well-being.

We cover:

· Leaning into nurturing yourself

· Courage to be different and not letting your fear run the show

· Being able to stay calm when you ask yourself “What’s the worst that could happen?”

· Daring to get creative and following your path

· Taking your kids out of school to travel and explore the world as a family

· Parenthood and being a career role model for your kids

· The challenge of getting stuck in information gathering before taking action

· Finding the balance between studying and learning on the job

· Helping people simplify the way they live and move through transformation

· Breaking old patterns to be healthier and happier

· Using simple breathing techniques to manage stress at work

· Being in charge of our thoughts and not letting them control or hold us back

· Realising that our thoughts only have as much power as we give them

· Using difficult experiences and people as lessons in developing better boundaries

Michelle’s top 3 career tips:

1) Don’t think you have to do what you’ve always done! Thing can and will change and you can create your own path.

2) Have movement in your life to help your career and overall life quality.

3) Don’t settle! You have one life, make every moment count.

Resources:

How can the concepts of purpose and efficiency work together when it comes to your career? In this insightful and to the point chat with Julia Capon, we unpack how we can do good for the communities around us and look after ourselves and our well-being in the process. By embracing growth and learning how to delegate, we can work more to our strengths and allow team members around us to grow as well. 

We cover:

· Making a difference to people, businesses and communities

· Values and finding true purpose in the work you do

· Connecting with what we wanted to do as children to our professional goals

· Finding systems and efficiencies to be happier and work better

· The distinction between ‘for purpose’ and ‘not-for-profit’

· Travel, the power of seeing communities working together and bringing this learning back home with you

· Trying to ‘do it all’ and balancing burnout

· Daring to shift when something is not working

· Money mindset shifts, delegation and hiring the right people to help you scale your business

· Being competent and capable, but still being able to delegate tasks that don’t make the biggest difference

· Not allowing ‘good’ things to stop you from being ‘great’

Julia’s top 3 career tips:

1) Keep investing in yourself and fast-track your growth

2) Get uncomfortable more – by doing those things you will grow

3) Community and network is everything

Resources:

I had the most wonderful, energising conversation with Natalie Sisson about her amazing range of career experiences ('wildly varied' in her own words!) to date and what led her to entrepreneurship and helping others grow.

We cover:

• Her passion for storytelling, journalism and marketing
• The desire to get onto the corporate ladder and challenge yourself
• Leaning into wildly different things in your career
• Knowing when and how to leave a role when you have mastered it
• Courage to explore the deep end and backing yourself to take on jobs you don't know how to do yet
• Rise to the challenge and showing up for yourself
• Reconciling dream roles who don’t turn out to be what you were promised on paper
• Gratitude for difficult experiences to help form your career journey
• Allowing people to back your career and help you learn and succeed in your role
• Leveraging honesty, transparency and a bit of cheekiness in your professional networking
• How career coaching helped shape her journey
• Pushing the boundaries and not conforming 
• Standing up for the salary and role you want and deserve

Natalie’s 3 career tips:

1. Negotiate your role upfront and make sure you get the money and value you need from it.

2. Do your research on the company before you meet with them and interview them as much as they interview you.

3.  Dare to design your ideal career set up, it will give you so much more joy.

Connect with Natalie:

This episode is jam packed with career advice and learnings from Bo Kratz, who also happens to be my cousin. He has a wealth (no pun intended!) of experience in asset management and leadership across many countries, including Sweden, Singapore and Hong Kong. 

In this episode we unpack some key career-defining moments and leadership learnings, including the question 'can you be too kind as a leader?' Bo generously shares his story of what got him started as an expat over 30 years ago and all the ups and downs along the way.

We deep dive into a few different areas:

• Asking for what you want and allowing people to be part of your journey
• Fully leaning in to belong – for yourself, your work and your loved ones
• Culture shock and managing people from different cultures
• Moving overseas with a family
• Key leadership learnings from a young age in army training
• Knowing when it’s time to leave a role that’s not right for you and how to be able to resign in an amicable way
• Benefits of career breaks and reflection
• Passions and hobbies outside of work

Bo's top 3 key career tips: 

1. With the resources you have, do what you can to improve your odds for success.
2. Always use your brain but listen to your heart!
3. Wherever you work, work hard and do the best you can and still remember you are part of an ecosystem. 

Resources:

It's only fair that you get the chance to get to know your podcast host, Emmy Petersson, and learn about some of my own most memorable (and sometimes difficult) career-defining moments. Thank you to my friend Michelle Frost who helps interview me about my career story and what brought me to starting this podcast and the work that I do as a mid-career coach. With my professional background in project management, marketing and sales, I share how I found my place in the professional world as a career coach and support for others.

We unpack:

• Career chapters and key learnings that shape us
• Magical career moments where we find our tribe and finally feel like we belong
• 3 career-defining moments that shaped my career
• How to create healthy structure and actionable steps to support career change
• Learning to thrive with change and leaning into the scary things
• Perfectionism and how to leverage it in your career
• Understanding professional pain - sometimes when something happens you can’t see the value or the learning in the moment
• Honesty with self and allowing a pause to reflect on why your career is not working
• Your career being a piece in your whole life puzzle

My top 3 career tips:

1. Fully lean into your strengths and your values

2. Dare to be different and not care about what others think

3. Develop healthy boundaries – it’s ok to teach others how it’s OK to treat you.

Resources:

Career-Defining Moments is a place for career storytelling and joint learning. It’s a place to share the stories that make us human at work and the things that changed us forever (even if we did not know it at the time).

But what is a career-defining moment? It's a point in your career when you had to make a pivotal decision, or when you had an experience that changed something fundamental for you. I believe these moments have a transformative effect on both our present, our future and those around us.