HEART-based Careers with Jenn Smith

Episode Transcript

Julianna:

Hello and welcome to The Daring to Succeed podcast. I’m your host, Julianna Yau Yorgan, and I’m so excited to be joined today by Jenn Smith, career and HR consultant. Jenn is a former HR and talent leader and the host of the Flourish Careers podcast. Her specialties include heart-based career development, wellbeing at work, career transitions, professional branding, talent acquisition and management. Welcome, Jenn.

Jenn Smith:

Thanks Juliana. I’m so excited to be here with you.

Julianna:

Yeah, I’m so excited to have you. I always start my podcast with the same question for every guest, and that’s, do you consider yourself more introverted, extroverted, or a bit of both?

Jenn Smith:

I am an introvert at heart and so much so I’m gonna share something funny. My husband calls me an urban hermit  So, no, it’s so funny. So I’ll tell you just a quick story on how this evolved. Now, don’t get me wrong, like I love people and I think a big misconception of introverts is that we don’t like people, but I do love people. I just don’t love big social interactions. I prefer deeper conversations or smaller gatherings versus noisy events. I don’t really love small talk with strangers, that kind of thing. And so we live in the city of Buffalo and we have a very big fluffy dog. She’s in Newfoundland. She’s 128 pounds, and she’s a conversation starter.

Julianna:

Oh my goodness.

Jenn Smith:

Every time. I take her out, somebody stops. And I’m telling you, people pull their car over, they take pictures, they come from across the street over to pet her, like all the thanks, and it just makes my heart race every single time. And so, I started walking her at like five in the morning, which I’m also like a morning person to a fault. So I started walking her very early just so I could have time to myself and I wouldn’t have all these strangers, you know, wanting to, to, to talk with me and the dog. And so based on all of that, my husband started calling me the urban hermit . So that’s kind of a joke between us now.

Julianna:

That’s so funny. My husband and I were actually talking about getting another pet after our cat passed away, and he’s been, yeah, it’s so sad. But she lived till 19, so she had a very, very low life.

Jenn Smith:

Yeah, yeah.

Julianna:

And he’s been really wanting a dog. I’m like, but that means I have to go to a dog park and talk to other dog owners, and I dunno if I’m okay with that.

Jenn Smith:

So funny. I’ll tell you, we’ve definitely met tons of our neighbors and stuff. We’ve met all of our neighbors just because of the dog. So it’s a lovely way to kind of push yourself out and meet new people. And dog owners I found are very lovely people and you usually have a lot in common from that perspective. But yeah, it can definitely be a bit much at times, especially if you have a 128 pound big fluffy dog. So fun.

Julianna:

That’s so much fun. Well, thank you for sharing that story with us.

Jenn Smith:

Of course.

Julianna:

So going back to more career development for our introverted listeners I just absolutely love that you focus on heart-based approach to career development. Can you tell us about a little bit about what that means to you and why it’s so important?

Jenn Smith:

Yes, thank you for asking this question and what it means to have a heart-based career. To me, it’s really all about alignment. So it’s aligning you to your career. And what I’ve realized, myself included is that so many people all too often just feel stifled in these careers that don’t fit. And it makes sense because we are kind of asked to figure out what we wanna do with our careers when we’re 16 or 17 years old. We’re so young, I can’t even think about that. Like, we just don’t know enough about ourselves to be able to launch into a college curriculum or some type of trade or whatever it is, knowing that we’re gonna love that for the rest of our lives. Now, thank goodness the world of careers has changed so much where we are able to make things a little bit more nimble and make changes versus at least my parents who stayed in the same thing for, you know, 30 plus years.

Jenn Smith:

But what, to me, working in a career that doesn’t fit, and I’m gonna use this this kind of visual that someone once said to me when I was working in a role that didn’t fit me. So to me, working in a career that doesn’t fit is like a princess working on Wall Street. So think of Cinderella working on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, right? My goodness, right? Her puffy blue and white gown and perfectly applied makeup. And this blonde hairstyle, it’s just not gonna be a fit. And that’s what I believe. When people are in careers that aren’t aligned to them, it’s just not a fit. And then all the energy that’s burned trying to fit is so much more to the point where it’s stress and it can lead to illness and sickness. And I’ve been there myself.

Jenn Smith:

And so that’s really what it’s about. It’s about alignment. And it isn’t to say that careers are all about, you know, magically going from scrubbing floors to dancing in fancy corporate boardrooms or anything like that. But I figured out a practical way to move more towards an aligned path that fits better. And maybe it’s a little bit more like Cinderella’s glass slipper than Cinderella working on the stock exchange. So and just to kind of like take that one layer deeper to the more kind of practical sense, what that means is, and I always say that we have to add a little more heart to our smart goals. So most people are familiar with the smart goal acronym. And so I like to say adding a little more heart means that our career goals are heart-centered, which means they’re aligned with our core and lifestyle values.

Jenn Smith:

They’re energizing. So it’s work that lights us up. They’re agile because the world of work is moving so quickly, we have to be able to move with it. Realistic, I love setting seasonal goals, so three to six months and then breaking them down into tiny actions because sometimes when we wanna make a change, we think it’s this big huge thing, but we, so, so it makes us pause, but we don’t actually take action because it’s too big. So we gotta break it down into tiny action. So that’s a little more heart to the smart and then we can take it even further and think about that alignment. So what’s an industry that you’re interested in, or what’s an industry you wanna make an impact in? Then you take it to the role, what’s a role that really generates your energy? So as introverts, we’re good at deep thinking.

Jenn Smith:

We’re good at building strong relationships, we’re good at active listening. What are the things that you’re really good at that you wanna do more of? And how does a role align to that? And I’ll say one thing is that a lot of times people are good at something, but they don’t like it. So for quick example, I was good at leading a team, but I didn’t love it. So how do you figure out what you’re really good at and that you like doing? And how do we map that to a role that’s gonna generate your energy to move forward with a sense of purpose? And then finding organizations that are a match to your values. So I break it down by industry role and then company that’s a match to your values, and that’s how you can start to align. It’s never gonna be perfect, but you can start to align you to a path that’s gonna feel a little bit more comfortable for you versus just taking whatever comes your way or doing what your mom says you should do or what your best friend is doing, or whatever that is.

Jenn Smith:

So hopefully that makes sense.

Julianna:

It really does. And I love how smart it is because I’ve coached people before who speaking of fairytales, I guess they have this fairytale belief that if they do something they love it will bring them fulfillment. And, but they, they attacked it almost from like the opposite end where you’re very methodical about it and very purposeful about how to narrow down what that, that target role in target company should be. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And this coaching client I had was more, oh, I really love basketball, so, and I love kids, so I get to coach basketball. And I said that, that’s great and that’s very noble of you. But is that something that you’re properly skilled for? Is there a market for that? Like, are people actually hiring coaches at that level for that sport where you live? And is it just you just take the thing that you love to do and turn that into a job? Or like you said, do you find what you’re good at and something that’s more value aligned and make that your career?

Jenn Smith:

Yes. Yeah. And that’s actually a misconception that I hear a lot when I talk about heart-based career planning. People think it’s, you have to do something altruistic or it’s taking your passion and turning that into your career. And that’s really not the case. It’s really just more about, because a full life isn’t just career. Yeah, we’re gonna spend a third of our lives working or 90,000 hours or whatever the stats are, which is a lot. And so you wanna make it something that’s gonna be fulfilling, but you also wanna have passions outside of work. You also, you know, wanna partner with your community for things. You wanna have creative things so it doesn’t have to all be in the career. You know, the real of fulfillment isn’t all career. And so I love that you’re differentiating that. And it’s almost like, so for that example, you know, the basketball and the coaching and so taking the elements of that. So maybe someone wants to work in the sports industry doing something that they’re really good at. And when you think about the sports industry, gosh, they need everything. They need finance people, they need HR people, they need sales people, they need it people, they need all the things, not just the players and the coaches. So it’s like kind of pulling that back a little bit, dissecting it a little bit more, and then thinking about it holistically and where you and your strengths fit into that.

Julianna:

Absolutely. And just from the sounds of it, I know that your clients are so well taken care of because it, it sounds like, you’ve got this nailed.

Jenn Smith:

Well, it’s taken me a while, but I do, I mean, I really am on a mission to share this with folks because careers are just so hard. And I work with so many people. The first time I meet people, they’re in tears crying because it’s just not a fit. Whether it’s the, you know, their boss or the company or the industry or anything. And that’s what I listen for. Like I start to dissect it in that way and then we start to brainstorm and help people connect the dots. And that’s really where the alignment comes in. And again, it’s never gonna be perfect. You know, people join a company, the whole leadership team changes, the company starts going down and they have to do it again. You know, I mean, this world of work is so wild right now, but at least it gives people kind of a roadmap to help with that alignment.

Jenn Smith:

And no one teaches us this in school. You know, my first job outta college, I got a business degree ’cause I didn’t know what else to do. And my first job was working in a potato chip factory as a frontline supervisor, and I worked the overnight shift. So here I am, right out of college making potato chips in the middle of the night. I was like, this is not my dream job by any means. It’s not even close. I, you know, side note, I will say I learned a ton about running a business in that role, but I mean, was so lost. And so if I had someone to help me kind of with this roadmap or this framework, I would’ve at least hopefully, you know, been in a little bit of a different path and I wouldn’t have, you know, had spent all these ups and downs and doing all these things for 15 years until I figured it out.

Julianna:

Yeah. And kind of thinking back to what you mentioned about we’re expected to kind of figure out what we want to do in our careers for the rest of our lives at 16. And I don’t know about what it was like for you in school, but for me it was a lot of like assessments and tests and things that they’re like, oh, well, if you like these things, you should consider these careers. But there was no depth to it. And I think that value alignment piece that you’ve been talking about is the biggest thing that’s missing. Where in school they’re just kind of like, okay, let’s match A with B, and then off you go, go get your degree, go get a job and, and B good. But yeah, your, your methodology is more about bringing your whole self, it sounds like, to work. Yes. And being happy and not being in tears anymore.

Jenn Smith:

Yes. That’s exactly what it is. And here’s the thing too. Everyone’s different. So, you know, there’s all these societal expectations and I see it a lot too, to your point around when we’re 16 families, tons of lawyers in the family. So I have to go be a lawyer and then I get into law school and I hate it, you know, and so you spend all this money and time and energy and then you’re like, oh my gosh, what did I just do? So let’s just pause and do some reflection and really, what does light you up and what are your values? And I like breaking values. You made a really good point. Like, I like breaking values down into your core values and then your lifestyle values. So, okay. And a lot of times I actually talk to high school students about this. Like, what do you want your lifestyle to look like?

Jenn Smith:

So think about that. And then it’s almost like you can reverse engineer your career a little bit more because you know what you, your lifestyle. I’ll just share a quick example. I worked with this beloved, oh my gosh, she was so sweet. Her whole family’s in the medical industry, and so she thought she was going to school to be a doctor. She got into Notre Dame or whatever school it was to, you know, and then realized halfway through, she’s like, you know what, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna spend 10 years in residency and traveling all over the place. Like, I wanna have a family and I don’t wanna spend, you know, the overnights working the hospital and doing the rounds. Like that’s not the lifestyle I wanna live, so what can I do now? And so we ended up working together and she kind of made a pivot into medical sales, which was much more of a professional role, kind of, you know, eight to five ish kind of thing, versus having to dedicate your entire life to something like that. So she still was in the world of medicine, but just in a different way. So it’s an interesting way to think about career.

Julianna:

Yeah. I love all of those stories so much. And for all of our listeners out there who are now riled up and ready to take the heart-based approach what’s one little small step that they can take towards a more fulfilling career through this heart-based approach?

Jenn Smith:

I would say embrace your introversion. So recognize it as the strength and then figure out how you can use it in your career. So what are those strengths that you’re really good at? And then how can you map that to an aligned path that’s gonna keep you fulfilled and excited about your work?

Julianna:

That’s awesome. And we talk a lot about that in the podcast. So for all listeners out there who are still on the edge trying to figure that out, I think Jenn’s advice is just perfect. Just embrace that introversion you have and figure out what your strengths are because they may not be the strengths that other people are looking for, but someone is looking for them.

Jenn Smith:

Definitely.

Julianna:

Great. Well, Jenn, it’s been so lovely talking to you. And if our listeners want to find more about your approach or follow you and find out more about what you do, where can they find you?

Jenn Smith:

Sure. Thanks Julianna. I have a podcast, it’s called the Florist Careers Podcast, where I talk a lot about this. And I also have a heart-based career planning checklist that I’d love to share with your listeners if you’re open to that. And then on the socials, I like Instagram at Flourish Careers or LinkedIn at Jennifer Smith career coach.

Julianna:

Perfect. So I’ll be sure to put all of those links, including your checklist in the show notes for everyone so that they can grab all of those freebies and resources from you.

Jenn Smith:

Excellent. Thank you.

Julianna:

Thank you. It was so much fun.

Jenn Smith:

It was.

Julianna:

All right, I’ll talk to you everyone next time. Bye now.