This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 092 / Making A Career YOU Turn with Ashley Stahl

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

In this episode of This Is Woman’s Work, we are going to explore a topic I know many of you are overthinking: making a career decision or transition. Making what my guest calls a YOU turn. I’ve invited Ashley Stahl, a counterterrorism professional turned career coach to join us today. Ashley is the bestselling author of the book You Turn: Get Unstuck, Discover Your Direction, Design your Dream Career. You probably have already heard of her from her two viral TEDx talks, or from her show “The You Turn” podcast, or in her monthly career column in Forbes. Ashley shares with us how to discover your best career path. When you know yourself intimately, deeply and truly, it becomes much more obvious where you fit, and where you don’t. And it becomes clearer who and what’s meant for you, and who and what isn’t. And let’s be real… you invest too much time, effort, energy and talent into your job to be doing something you hate, or to be doing it with people who don’t appreciate the fully historic arrangement of badassery that is you. So go find or create that job, and if it requires a YOU turn, well that is Woman’s Work. To learn more about Ashley visit her website at AshleyStahl.com and follow her across all social media @ashleystahl. To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

Here's one mind-busting thought from our guest, and you're definitely going to want to tune in for more. And then start asking yourself the question of, what are my skills? Instead of what should I do, where am I gifted? Where do I get feedback from people? And then what kind of jobs or what kind of businesses are built around this core skill set? Do you find yourself thinking about a conversation, an event, argument, or decision for weeks or months on end? I've come to realize that far too many of us are overthinking. We do this in our relationships, as parents, and definitely in our jobs. You know what I'm talking about, right? Should I share this idea or will they think I'm stupid? Or even worse, will they think the idea

is stupid? Should I go after that promotion or wait till everything lines up perfectly? Or if I were ready, they would just tell me, right? Or am I even the right person with the right company or in the right industry? Is this what I'm meant to be doing? Should I be getting paid more? What would happen if I left? What would happen if I started my own business or applied for my dream job? Would I make it? Would I get the job? These are the types of things that are running through our mind over and over. And I know I'm not the only one who finds myself spinning from all the thoughts and questions in my own mind. And there's nothing wrong with thinking,

but overthinking is a problem because overthinking leads to inaction and inaction leads to regret. I am Nicole Kalil and on today's episode of This Is Woman's Work, we're going to explore a topic I know many of you are overthinking about. And that is making a career transition, making what my guest calls a

U-turn, a Y-O-U turn, which I love. I've invited Ashley Stahl, a counterterrorism professional turned career coach to join us today. Ashley is the best-selling author of the book, U-Turn, Getting Unstuck, Discover Your Direction, Design Your Dream Career. You probably have already heard of her from her two viral TED Talks or from her show, the U-Turn podcast, or in her monthly career column in Forbes. If you haven't heard of her yet, I'm kind of shocked and you are absolutely in for a real treat today. Ashley, I can't wait to talk about career clarity with you, but I need to start by asking how you made the transition from counterterrorism to career coach. Yeah, thank you.

What an intro. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to talk about all of this. And as far as going from national security to career coach, I mean, obviously I didn't come out of the womb thinking I wanted to be a career coach. Like what a bizarre career choice for someone who, you know, in a modern world that didn't really exist when I was a kid, I don't think. But I was just like everyone in college. I didn't really know what to major in. I didn't really know who I was and how are you supposed to know what path you want when you're like 18 years old and you've never tried anything on. And so I remember just being really confused in college,

going to the career services office and the woman saying to me, you know, do what you love or follow your passion or follow your bliss and just being super confused. So I studied government because I was impacted by 9-11. I had family on the East Coast and I always was really good at learning foreign languages. I was bilingual in French at a young age, Spanish. And so I just kind of thought, I love culture. I love people. I might as well study this. And I didn't understand that there's a big difference between being interested in something and having a career path in it. And the premise of my work ever since has become, don't do what you love, do what you are. And it took me years to really understand that. So I gave myself to counter

terrorism. I got the best internships I could. I worked for Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was governor. I worked for the queen when I went to grad school in England on her human rights legal team. You name it. I really poured myself into it. Got a graduate degree at King's College, London, and started learning Arabic at UCLA. And I graduated during the recession from my graduate program. Couldn't get a job to save my life. Slept on my parents' couch. Eventually just bought into the myth that I would have to take what I could get. So I ended up, you know, just taking this admin assistant job, making minimum wage at an ad agency. And I was so tortured by that, that I emailed my college and said, do you have a list of people who have graduated and moved to DC? And they said, yes. And I worked my way

through 2000 phone numbers, names, emails, and called people. And I fell on my face. I didn't really know how to talk to people, obviously for opportunities, but eventually I got really good at it and authentic at it even better. So I felt like myself. I learned how to talk to people and I ended up getting a ton of job offers and accepting one as a defense contractor at the Pentagon, running a program relating to Afghanistan. And the way that this translated into my career coaching was, A, I got really good at job hunting from that list of 2000 people. And friends started asking me, like, how do I network? And some friends would say, oh, you should be a career coach.

And I don't even know what that meant. You know, like, am I like on the sidelines of your career, like a hockey coach, like cheering you? What does that even? But eventually I started teaching job hunting. And meanwhile, working in counterterrorism, you are taught about intuition. Intuition is the vehicle that will save your life. If you're out in the field, if you work in intelligence, um, it's, and to me, intuition is knowing what, you know, without knowing why

you know it, it's just information. And it information and it comes in. It's not emotional. It's not fear-based. It's not chatty in your head. It usually sounds like this is good for me. This isn't good for me. That's it. And so you learn in national security when to feel your intuition, when to access that information. And a lot of people who become agents, you know, they rely on that to save their life. And so the combination of learning how to job hunt through, you know, 2000 names and emails and being in a job where intuition is, is King. I started helping people not only land job offers, but listen to themselves and what job offer do you even want? Who are you? And, you know, now 10, 12 years later, I have online courses, my show, the U-Turn podcast, my book,

U-Turn and all of these things that, you know, this idea of making a U-Turn, Y-O-U is about coming home to yourself and reconnecting to what you actually want, what you actually need. And I'm really passionate about that ever since. So I've been helping people figure out where they really belong in their career and how to make it happen. So I don't know that I've ever heard a better description or definition of intuition than that, that like, I kind of hit me hard. It was knowing what, you know, but not knowing why you know it. How did you say that again? Yeah, that actually comes from Noah Berman on my podcast. He said he was, he's a medium and that was his definition. He says, knowing what you know, without knowing why you know it.

So good. Okay. I have kind of a two-part question here. The first is, I mean, you're doing this for a living and you are interacting with so many people. I don't know if you have actual data on this, but how many people actually love their careers or feel like they're doing what they're supposed to be doing or feel like they're in the right place? Because what you described, it was exactly the same for me. I didn't know what I wanted to do in college and I found myself down a path and it was

working, but it wasn't until I connected with who I am and what I want that I realized I wasn't in the right place. So long-winded way of asking, how common is this that people are not where they want to be or where they feel they should be? Yeah, this is an awesome question because I have a lot of thought about it and I get a lot of media that asks me like the great resignation, what is going on and I'm like, are you kidding me, the majority of the workforce was disengaged before the pandemic. Oracle did a study that the average worker was adding an hour a day to their work which means five hours a week which is like a part time job of a job that most people were disengaged in, and you're surprised that people are resigning from their jobs and, and just like making ends meet in a different way. Like they're exhausted. So as far as the workforce goes before the pandemic, an average of around 71% of the workforce was on the job hunt. And I would argue that they weren't really job hunting. They were clarity hunting because most people don't love what they do because they weren't really job hunting. They were clarity hunting because most people don't love

what they do because they don't know themselves because at a young age, we kind of have to choose something. And the pressure we have on us is so bizarre. It's like the equivalent of, of your parents saying to you in preschool, like the first person you have a crush on, you better marry them. It's like, that's what we're doing in our career. The first thing you study and choose, you better build it. It's like, but do you really want to water this weird flower if it's not for you? So I think a lot of people who are looking for a job are really just looking for clarity. They're really just looking to feel like, oh, this thing feels like home. And they're in that process of finding that for themselves. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And I'm with you. I was surprised by people's surprise about the great resignation. I'm like, this seems like so obvious. But okay, so then I guess the second part of my question is around gaining that clarity. If you should do what you are, how do we discover what we are? And then how do we leverage that and figuring out our career? Yeah. Good

question. Um, I think, you know, you and I had kind of talked on my podcast and I loved your tip about tuning into what you know, for sure about yourself. Um, like we were talking about in our conversation, it's like people get really addicted to looking at what they don't know and obsessing over that, but there's a lot you do know. And so I would start with saying, what do you know to be true about yourself? And it can be anything. It could be that you're a warm person, that you're a funny person, that you're a communicative person. It's whatever you know to be true. And I would say the second thing is really understanding that a successful and fulfilling career tends to be not about what you know, what you love or what you're interested in, but what your skills are. And I think there's two core dynamics in any fulfilling career. The first dynamic is

the what that has to do with your skillset. What are you putting your energy into all day? How are you using your mind, your body, your heart? Are you in communication with someone? Are you in front of people outside? Are you at a desk? Are you heart. Are you in communication with someone? Are you in front of people outside? Are you at a desk? Are you writing? Are you typing? What percent of your day looks like what if it really aligned with your skills? So that's the first thing to look at. The second thing is the how, and it matters just as much as the what. The how has to do with your core values. Given that most people may be in the right job, maybe not, but that thing that really bothers them isn't always, you know, 50% of people leave their job because they don't like their boss. So what we know to be true is that how your job looks matters just as much as what your job is.

And so I think it's important to say, what do you value? Do you value balance? What does that mean to you? Do you value health wellness? Does balance look like you working a lot for three months and then taking three months off? Does it look like having time at 5 PM for the gym and your kids every day? If your job is violating a core value, if your business is violating a core value, it's

trespassing upon a non-negotiable principle by which you live your life. No matter what the job is, no matter how right it is, you're not going to be happy. So I think balancing those two pieces are really key. I couldn't agree more and incredibly well said. So from a career transition or U-turn, I love the Y-O-U turn, like how does one begin to go on that journey? So if they have spent some time in self-discovery, they've identified their core values, they've thought about the what and the who and the how and all of that, like logistically, what happens next? How do you get people to think about the next steps to take? Yeah, this is a very important question. And I thought about it a lot after writing my book. And I realized that I think there's three lily pads in your career.

The first one is where a lot of people are. It's just experimenting. It's saying like, who am I? What do I like? That's it. I think the second lily pad is about knowing what your gift is. And that's what I try to get people to with my book U-Turn or with my podcast is, can you at least know what your skills are?

Can you collect feedback? And if you don't know, and you're really drawing a blank, ask people around you, where have you seen me at my best? It's hugely informative to get that kind of information from people. And then I would say, once you collect that information, it's about saying, okay, people are giving me feedback. This is where I'm really skilled. You kind of lock into the second lily pad and you can hang out on the first one for a while. Experimentation. You need to be

willing to experiment your way into your purpose. And if you're not, you're not going to be able to just take a shot in the dark and lock in. Most people are not going to be able to do that. Some people are lucky. They don't have to go through the experiment phase, but being human is not really about that for most of us. So I would say once you experiment and you try on different skillsets, you try on different jobs, you try on different roles, you have different conversations, you might be able to swim over to the second lily pad where you're locked into your gift. Most people don't make it here, but a lot do. This is awesome. These are the highly talented people. These are the people that everyone's noticing. They're doing a really good job.

How are they so good at their job? It's because they're locked into the right skillset. And when you're on the second lily pad, your challenge is about sifting through opportunities. It's about saying yes or no. It's about being a filter because when you're good at things, people notice it and people give you opportunities. And then your Dharma, your self-discovery rides on your willingness to really reflect on each opportunity and say yes or no, because opportunities can be one of the biggest forms of distraction. So, you know, we love opportunities, but they can be very distracting if you take the wrong one.

So really sifting through your opportunities and being able to be honest with yourself, taking the right one. And once you do that, once you've been hanging out on that second lily pad with your gift, if you choose the right ones, you may be able to swim over to the third one that most people never make it to. And that's Dharma. That's like soul work. I have swum. I don't even know if swum is a word from the second and third lily pad back and forth, because I know my gift is words. And I talk about in my book, the top 10 gifts that I think exist in the workforce and in businesses, and people can kind of self-identify which one do I have. But once you know that it's like, I know words is my gift. Communication is my gift. And it was when I was writing my book that I really felt that sense of Dharma,

that third lily pad that like, if I die after this book is over, I've done what I'm here to do. That sense of like words are coming through my fingers and I'm not thinking of them. It's a portal. It's like a transmission. So that flow state, that time doesn't exist, that Kobe Bryant on television, speaking from a higher frequency, it's the magic that all of us want to experience. It's incredibly fulfilling, but you really can't get to the third lily pad without swimming around and trying things on. And so anyone who's listening right now, there's nothing wrong with liking your career at like, you know, 75%.

It's actually quite impressive. I tell a lot of people, if you like what you do, or you love what you do 80% of the time, 70% of the time, you're doing pretty great because we've been sold this vision, especially the millennial generation of, you know, love what you do. And I think love is a very strong word. I love my dog. I love my mom. I love my friends. I like what I do a lot. There's a couple of things in it I love, but I can't love everything. Everything has a cost of admission. Everything has a tax you need to pay. Like I love my podcast. I love my book, but I don't like editing the podcast. I don't like dealing with invoices.

Like everything has a total picture. And so when you're swimming on these lily pads, it's also about managing your own expectations and tuning in to your standards. So many incredible things in there. I was literally nodding the entire time that you were talking. I think for a lot of people, the idea of swimming from one lily pad to the other triggers a lot of fear, right? There's a lot of unknowns. There's a lot of what ifs. And some of that is fair. I often say you can't have courage without

first having fear. So welcome the opportunity to choose courage. Having said that, some of these fears are unfounded or stuff we're making up in our own mind. So I would love to talk about maybe some of the myths or unfounded fears that people have that are keeping them stuck in their career. They're keeping them from swimming to the next lily pad. I would say, God, there's so much that keeps you from swimming along. I would say the first thing is just not choosing to even ask the questions. And I think a lot of people know what they know and they don't want to know it. And they spend

all day trying to not know what they know. So if you hate your job or you don't like your job, or, you know, it's not for you, that's inconvenient. Like changing your career is super inconvenient. And most people don't want to have to deal with that. It's just a fact. And so I think not letting yourself know what you know is one of the top barriers to really being fulfilled. So I would say step one is asking yourself the question. And I asked this in my more recent Ted talk is what do you know that you wish you did not know? And, um, I got a version of this question from Clarissa Pinkola Estes in the women who run with wolves book. What do you know that you wish you didn't? And that's where you can start. I think it's not about just finding out what, you know, it's about looking at where you're blocked. You know, we live in a world that is really complex and most people think that to fix

something, you need to add something on or do something when a lot of the times you just need to remove something for yourself up. And so I think looking at what do you know that you wish you didn't know what's the truth until you're working with the truth, you are not going to be able to change your life. You are not going to be able to change your career. And it kind of reminds me in psychology, I got a master's in psych. And I remember either there's this term that I thought was really interesting called a fantasy bond and people have it with their parents. They, they lie to themselves and say that they're very close to their parents as a way to feel safe. And as a way to protect

themselves from processing things in their childhood that they didn't like, or that they have judgment on. I think we have a fantasy bond with our career sometimes it's like, oh, it's amazing. And it's like, do you just have a relationship with what your LinkedIn profile looks like? Or do you really love your career? So I think that's the first step is what do you know that you wish you didn't? Can you be radically honest with yourself about where you are and then figuring out what do you want more of? What do you want to feel? What do you want to experience? A lot of the times we're also just thinking too small. One of my best friends in New York, she won a pageant. I have a lot of pageant babes in my life randomly. And when she gave up her crown, she was just like, man, I feel like I've peaked.

This was a huge life achievement. I got all these opportunities because of it. Now what? And her block was just not seeing how big her life can be. And so a lot of the times we think we've peaked and we're just thinking too small life can be so big. It can be so expanded. And so it's almost like give yourself permission. What is the, if you, if anything was possible, you could do anything. What's the craziest, most exciting, big thing you would do? What's the most expressed version of yourself? And I think a lot of that comes back to knowing your core skillset. I know my skillset is words, right? So as I was saying, it's like, what is the highest frequency of using words? Sometimes I think about David Letterman and his new Netflix special about

interviewing people. And I'm like, man, I would really love to do something like that. Maybe that's a higher version of my skillset. Sometimes I want to turn my book into a film and I've talked to producers about it. So it's about looking at your skill and saying, if I up the volume to a 10 on this, what would be possible? Okay. Again, amazing thing. So I know you're not doing as much coaching today, more focused on speaking and all the big things. So I know you interact with people on a regular basis in this space. What do you say to people that say, I can't, it's too much responsibility, paying the mortgage, take care of my kids. I can't change careers. I can't take the risk. Yeah. I actually, in my book, I talk about different key motivators that people have. And

ease is a real motivator. That's E in the word motivates that I wrote down. So if you're motivated by ease and that's what your priority is in your life that I wrote down. So if you're motivated by ease and that's what your priority is in your life and the job just fits in and you're not miserable, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. We all come into the world with different goals, different priorities. And the real truth here is you just need to be deeply honest with yourself. Are you actually okay with that? Is that what motivates you? Or are you making excuses and stories to keep you stuck where you are because your comfort zone is a lot more comfy, you know, than, than somewhere else. And not enough people talk about how success is a comfort zone. Success is a very warm place to hide. So if you're having a lot of success,

it can be very exhausting because you think, oh, like, you know, what I'm doing is working, but do you really like what you're doing? So it's also a very threatening thing to look at. I love that you said that because I do know some people who say my job is my job. Like I like it well enough. It pays me well, but what it mostly allows for me to do is to do what I love outside of my job. And it took me a long time to recognize that because I had, you know, in my head, like the, if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life, all the bullshit. And, um, I, I was really, I thought success was the end all be all and all that. Okay. Any other things that you're hearing maybe more specifically from women that would be helpful in their quest to make a career transition? Yeah. I mean, a lot of people come up to me and say like, I need clarity. And you know, especially when I'm

private coaching, like that's a huge thing that bring people into my world. And I don't believe that. I don't think you need clarity. I think you need to connect to yourself. And a lot of people don't have clarity because they're just cut off from themselves. Maybe they grew up in a culture where we talked about the messaging was like, you know, don't care about you care about the collective care about what other people think people, please, you don't matter, whatever it is and connecting to yourself takes work. It takes attention. It takes time to notice. And so I would say like, come up with a list of people, places, things that make you feel like you. Um, for me, it's the ocean for me. It's a couple of good friends that I have. I have a lot of girlfriends. I love there's a couple in particular where it's like, damn, whenever I see them and myself again, notice what those things are for you. Because when you start to be you again, you feel what feels good and it starts to leak into other areas and your yeses and your nos become easier. So I would say, instead of saying, what do I do with my career? I would start saying, what makes me feel alive? What makes me feel connected? And even if it's like a painting

class, a dance class, whatever, go do those things and then start asking yourself the question of what are my skills instead of what should I do? Where am I gifted? Where do I get feedback from people? And then what kind of jobs or what kind of businesses are built around this core skillset? I started our podcast by talking about overthinking. And I know for me, the antidote to overthinking is getting into action as you're in self-awareness. So you gave the example of 2000 names, right? You didn't go and spend all this time in self-awareness and practice your pitch and get it perfect before you started calling. It sounds like you started calling and learned a little bit as you

went, right? Like you let yourself make the mistakes and not get it right and experience some failures in order to get good. So my question is what advice do you have around? Yes. Self awareness. Yes. Reflection. Yes. But in what ways can people be an action? Well, I would say on that note of what you're sharing, I mean, clarity comes from engagement. It doesn't come from thoughts. So if you want, if you feel like you're in limbo in your life, you know, like you're in a rocking chair, that's a very powerless place to be. So I would say if you want to make progress, make a commitment, pick something, show up, see what feedback the universe gives you and course correct along the way, hold your career lightly.

You don't need to hold it so heavy and the lighter you hold it, the faster you can move. It's not about turning your resume into a graveyard of trial and errors. It's about saying, I'm going to deeply think about what my skills are. I'm going to deeply investigate this what my skills are. I'm going to deeply investigate this with the people in my life. And from there, I'm going to try something on and I'm not going to overthink it. My last question, 90% of our listeners are women. Any commentary on the wage gap, maybe more specifically, if a woman listening knows they're getting paid less than a male counterpart or feels they're being overlooked for opportunities because they're not on the golf course or, you know,

whatever the case may be, what are your thoughts for women as it relates to making a U-turn or career transition? If you're feeling that sexism is at play, you may love what you do. You may love the opportunity, the industry, the job, but if sexism is at play in your workspace, what advice do you have there? Okay. Well, obviously sexism is real and we know that, but I do think that what's even more real is how much we don't ask for what we want to get paid. The statistics are there. The confidence that you need. It's not John's fault if Sally didn't ask for the right compensation. John Doe is going to ask for what he wants

because the research shows that he's wired to do that more than a woman is for whatever the reason is biologically. So I think really taking personal responsibility for saying, yes, there's a wage gap and I'm responsible for asking aggressively and I'm responsible for doing the research and I'm responsible for working through the mindset blocks that come with asking. And, you know, the majority of communication is not what you say, it's how you say it. So you're also responsible for the energy that your communication is riding on when you make a request. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I really think it's such a complex issue and there isn't just one answer, but I always think to myself, that's why I focus so much on confidence is it's like,

I don't think that women lacking confidence is the only problem that exists in the professional environments in which we work. It's just a piece of the puzzle that we have power over, that we have control over. So, you know, yes, there are going to be environments where even if you ask and ask well, you might not make the same, but then you need to make a decision. But until you ask and ask well, then, and that is something you have power and control over, then we are being part of the problem. Beautiful. Okay. Thank you so much for the beautiful questions.

And I hope that this helps your listeners, you know, in any way possible. And I think asking is a muscle you build. It's not just about the one time you negotiate, it's building that muscle in your life. And I think knowing what you want and asking, you need to know what you want in order to ask for it. And I think that's the key to fulfillment is knowing what to ask for. I couldn't agree more. My daughter and I, we always say practice makes progress because perfect is not an available option to any of us. And I think what you just said made me think of that. We've got to practice asking.

We've got to put ourselves out there. And of course, resources like your book, your podcast, career coaches, practicing with somebody, a close colleague or a friend before you go in so you feel prepared and ready. But you got to ask. Getting into action is key. Ashley, thank you so much for your time and your words. You are absolutely correct. You have a gift, my friend. So thank you for being here with us today. If you are listening, check out Ashley at her website, ashleystahl.com. We'll put everything in show notes. You can follow her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Ashley Stahl and absolutely go get your copy of her book, U-Turn, and tune into her amazing podcast, also called't do what you love, do what you are.

When you know yourself intimately, deeply, and truly, it becomes much more obvious where you fit and where you don't. And it becomes clearer who and what's meant for you and who and what isn't. If you find yourself overthinking, stop and take all that energy and all that mental power and use it to reconnect with you. And then get into action towards what matters most because you invest too much time, effort, energy, and talent into your job to be doing something you hate or to be doing it with people that don't appreciate the fully historic arrangement of badassery that is you. So go find or create that dream job. And if it requires a U-turn, well, that is woman's work.