Season 1, Episode 6

Episode Transcript

Julianna: Hi, and welcome to The Daring to Succeed Podcast. I’m joined today by Patricia, who is a life and career coach, and the host of the Uncommon Career Podcast. She helps technical leaders and professionals overcome career challenges to find land and thrive in a fulfilling and impactful career. She has over a decade of experience as a certified life coach and executive coach, and holds a master of science in counseling her friends and family. Know her as a Jesus loving faith-driven wife, doodle mom, and book quarter. I’m so excited to have her join us today because I love chatting with like-minded coaches. Patricia, welcome to the podcast.

Patricia: Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here.

Julianna: Yeah, absolutely. So I’ll start things off by, what is a doodle mom ?

Patricia: I know, right? Sometimes I share it and people are like, is that like a noodle? Is that like, do you draw? So in my part of the world, there is tons of golden doodles and that’s a poodle bread with a a golden retriever. And so we call them doodles. And so I am, I don’t have kids, but I kind of do, ’cause I’ve got two golden doodles that I absolutely love.

Julianna: Oh, amazing. And I know from pet ownership, they are a handful. Especially, it sounds like they’re pretty high energy.

Patricia: They’re very high energy. I mean, at first I thought I would need to go to the gym every day, and sometimes I’m like, Nope. I’ll just hang out with them and we’ll be, we’ll be good.

Julianna: Sounds about right. All right. So let’s start with, do you consider yourself more introverted, extroverted, or maybe a bit of both.

Patricia: Oh, okay. So this is part of the reason why when we got in touch, I was really intrigued by what you do because I am an introvert at heart. Mm-Hmm. , like if I took the MVTI today, it would be far on the introvert side. And I think a lot of people are sometimes surprised to hear that because I Right. Am very animated. Right. But at the end of all that animation, which is very much a learned skill, at the end of all that, I am just done exhausted and on the couch. So I’m very much an introvert.

Julianna: That’s so interesting. because I have a lot of those conversations with people where I think a lot of us introverts have learned to be more extroverted in the world and especially in the workplace just, maybe to keep up with expectations.

Patricia: Oh, that is a really good point.

Patricia: I’m like, huh. I think in the beginning I think it was sort of like, well, this is what you gotta do. Right? Yeah. And one of the things I realized is even though it’s so tiring for me sometimes to walk into a room and be like, Hey, what’s up? Like to everybody, right. I think, at the same time I’ve found this like hidden benefit as an introvert to then be able to kind of have enough contact points with enough people that then I can do my introvert thing and be like, I really wanna have a deep one-on-one conversation with this one person that I don’t think I would have met. Right. If I hadn’t kind of pushed myself just a little bit. But I am very selective as far as like, you know, like I can only do so much communication in a week . And so it’s like, let’s pick the best conversations we can have in that week.

Julianna: Yeah. I, I’m the same where it’s like, yeah, I wanna have the good conversations with people, not just talking about the weather.

Patricia: No, please. I can only do that for so long.

Julianna: Okay. So I love that we have a shared clientele and I’m so intrigued about the work you do with creating a compelling career story. Can you tell us a little bit about why that’s so powerful for people who are looking to transition careers?

Patricia: Yeah. So I kind of, I mean, in a way I’ve always liked communication and messaging, right? And there’s you know, I think there’s, if you talk, I always say if you talk to five different career coaches, you’re gonna get five different ways to land that position, right? And you’re deciding which one’s the right fit for you. And one thing that for me has always been important, especially because I kind of came up from a different background and it was kind of, I didn’t have all these networks to go off of. And one of the things that I learned growing up is, you know how they say possession is nine tenths of the law.

Julianna: Yep.

Patricia: So one thing that I kind of learned growing up is perception is nine-tenths of the decision. And that’s something that, you know I think in a world where we’re really aiming to be authentic maybe comes off a little like hmm. Right. You know, and so I definitely think it’s really important to be authentic. And that is the same thing as perception is nine tenths of the decision. Because if you’re authentically confident, that is seen, right? And that’s really where I help people to get to, is to get to a place where we come up with your story and you’re confident in the reality of that story and then now you’re perceived accurately. Because I think oftentimes we’re not perceived accurately because of the nervousness that comes up. And so, so that’s like the first piece, right? But the career story is something that we craft over time. So okay.

Patricia: Imagine that you are currently, you know a teacher, you’re currently in education. I just spoke to someone who’s amazing and was doing something very similar to this. And they want to get a position in educational sales because they wanna start to pivot outward. Well, what we do is we say, okay, what’s your end goal? Your end goal is educational sales at what type of company? Maybe they’re at their growth stage or scaling stage, or mature stage of the business. And so then it’s like, okay, what is your unique value proposition? So what’s your it factor? How are you providing something that is in low supply and high demand? Mm-Hmm. . And then we craft your story from the beginning. So imagine that you’re a hero and we’re building out your movie, and it’s like, where did your interest begin?

Patricia: Like What was that moment? And I always tell people to paint a picture. So one of mine is, you know, I grew up from a, you know you know, less, I dunno, you’d call it less affluent background, whatever you would call that, right?

Julianna: Whatever we’re calling that today.

Patricia: Whatever the term is today. And, but there was a day where I found myself in the parking lot at the university and I’m walking to my class, but I just have to stop and look around at this ginormous university and realized how small I am, but how big the world is. And that was the moment that I realized I wanna help people to find their place in the world. And so you start this, you create this like story around this first moment. And then from there it’s like, and here’s where I went. And you kind of, you know, just like any other tell me about yourself question. You chart the story, but you’re very specific in choosing which experiences you want to share to bring people through a two, three minute story and how to phrase those in a way that is really persuasive and compelling that comes from the inside.

Patricia: That’s not me giving you words, but that Right. I mean, it’s so easy to do that. Yeah. But we really coach through it so that you can feel the impact of your story and every achievement and how it comes to a close with that last sentence of, and this is why this company at this time and this particular position is the perfect next step for my career journey. And so it kind of creates an investment of, you know, having a single thread throughout your entire career story. It also creates, you know, engagement. It brings in a little bit of the emotions and also at the same time that same career story can now be used as, you know, part of your summary on your resume. It can be used as part of your about section on your LinkedIn and even pulling micro stories to develop a little bit more as part of your resume responses.

Julianna: So I love that. And especially the reusing of the story piece where you don’t have to keep creating new content for all those different things. And I imagine that having that consistency of the story across your profile and your cover letter and your resume and everywhere really helps as well.

Patricia: Oh my goodness. And this is where I think everyone breathes a breath of fresh air where you’re like, oh, I don’t have to start over.

Julianna: You don’t have to do this 6 times.

Patricia: Exactly. And it’s like, no, like think about Pepsi and Lays and all these really successful companies. When you come from a marketing standpoint, you need to hear the exact same message four or 5, 6, 7, 8 times before. It’s like really clicks. And that’s what you want your employer to feel is, oh, this is what they’re known for because they’ve repeated it so many times. So it’s, it’s less work than I think. We think it’s……

Julianna: I love that I’m not even looking for a job and I kind of want to hire you to write my movie.

Patricia: Right?

Julianna: Just for fun

Patricia: Love that.

Julianna: And for our introverted listeners out there, what would be one piece of advice that you would give them about trying to create or use a compelling career story for their, for themselves? Like if they’re kind of wanting to test that out for themselves?

Patricia: Yeah. the most important part of any movie, of any book, of any story is the ending. So you’ve gotta come up with that ending first. Where do you wanna be at your next position? And then what makes you uniquely qualified for that next position? Like what is your unique value proposition Once you have that, the rest of the story, I don’t wanna say it writes itself, but you basically wanna go throughout your career journey and even your life and figure out the points that seem to the stories that seem to point and the accomplishments that seem to point to that ending. And that’s really the skeleton of the career story.

Julianna: Nice. I’m sure it’s not as easy as it sounds but it’s so beautiful .

Patricia: Yeah. So definitely it takes some work, it takes some time, but it’s I think all good things take time and it’s really powerful, the confidence that I’ve seen people really achieve and the way they’re able to portray it so much more persuasively.

Julianna: Love it. Yeah. Well thank you so much for sharing that with us today. I think we’ll be dropping your LinkedIn profile and your website into the show notes. So if you want to look for Patricia so she can write your screenplay , definitely check that out. And you have a career transition checklist that you’re sharing out as well? Where can people find that?

Patricia: Yeah, so the career transition checklist just kind of walks you through the same process that I walk all my clients through. But you can either use it as a DIY or more as an introduction to the coaching process. And that is that the uncommon career.com/welcome.

Julianna: Awesome. And we’ll put that in the show notes for you too.

Patricia: Thank you for that.

Julianna: Well, it was so lovely talking to you today, Patricia.

Patricia: It’s my pleasure. My pleasure. A hundred percent

Julianna: Thank you so much.

Patricia: Bye everyone.

Julianna: Bye.