Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Making Lemonade: The Job Hunt

Episode Date: March 30, 2018

Mike shares personal news and is joined by Head of Customer Success at LinkedIn Canada, Perry Monaco.

Welcome to episode 320 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. This week, we're busting the typical Toronto Mic'd format and getting serious about an epidemic of sorts affecting men and women in Toronto and beyond. I'm Mike from torontomic.com, and joining me is head of customer success at LinkedIn Canada, Perry Monaco, as we discuss dealing with the reality of being restructured out of a job and making lemonade from those bitter tasting lemons. Welcome to Toronto Mike, Perry. Hi Mike, how are you? Good, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

So what exactly do you do at LinkedIn Canada? It's a great question. So I head up our customer success team, focusing on our talent solutions product, product which ultimately is a solution that leverages the power of linkedin and helps our customers uh find the passive talent in the marketplace um which essentially um gives them a heads up over their competition allows them to find better quality talent um quicker and more effectively at toronto mic'd we have this thing i call Real Talk. No BS, we just tell it straight. And I'm hoping you'll give me a moment here because I want to share something with everybody listening. And with you, I'm really glad you're here. So for the past eight days, I've been dealing with something and I'd like to tell everybody about it.

For the past seven years, I've worked full time as a digital marketing manager for a global B2B software company. I was hired to work for my home office in Toronto, as there is no office in Canada. And I received a very stellar review from my direct superior as recently as Tuesday. The fact is, I don't mean to brag here, but I'm very good at my job and I work very well with others, regardless of rank or personality type. And I've got a couple of decades of experience under my belt. But unbeknownst to my direct superior, I was presented with a folder last Thursday morning. I was told they're restructuring the marketing department and there will be no more marketing employees working remotely. And as we speak here today, I'm still negotiating

with my employer as to how long I'll work for because I'm actually still working there. And severance, so a lot of fun as you can imagine. But I'm essentially in a state of professional limbo and rather anxious about what the next chapter will look like. Because that news I received last Tuesday morning is what I would call a bucket full of lemons. And my intention is to do now what I've always done. I want to make lemonade. Leaders and leaders and leaders of lemonade. So as I reflect upon everything that's happened this past week, I've come down to realize that there's four options before me here. So I'm going to share with you, Perry, I'm going to share my four options, and then we'll talk. The first option, I can take another full-time gig.

I'm very open to this possibility if the right company and opportunity presents itself. The second option, I can start a home-based business offering a hybrid of services from digital marketing to content creation, web presence development and management, to podcasting and podcasting consultation. Sometimes I actually think it's easier to get a full-time job when you specialize in something very specific, like for example, plumbing. If you're a professional plumber and you're good at plumbing, you have this very specific skill set. So you're looking for a plumbing job, whereas I have experience and expertise in a wide array of areas, from marketing automation, to email marketing, to web development, to writing case studies and press releases,

and now hosting a rather popular podcast and designing the back-end infrastructure and process for some famous Canadian podcasters. So I'd like to do all of that from home if possible. My third option is I can stay home with my youngest child and do some work from home to make some income. I've had four children but never took a week of parental leave, so this is my last chance to do something like that. And although it would be financially difficult, I think it would be rather soul-nourishing, as they say. And the fourth option I have before me is I can curl into a ball and rock back and forth, telling myself I'm worthless and will never work again. So Perry, you're here to ensure

that option four does not happen, and to help me and those listening, primarily with option number one. Yeah, Mike. Oh, dear. I definitely don't want number four to happen. That's certainly not, you know, the option that we want to have come forward at the end of this,

right? Right. Because I could run out of sad songs on my playlist. So please. Exactly. You wouldn't want to play any Air Supply or anything like that to keep you... No, I'll leave the Air Supply to you, I think. Right. Yeah, exactly. More up your alley. You know, I think that the first thing that I would definitely recommend, to give you a little bit of an idea of where I'm coming from, Mike, I used to be a recruiter. I was in the recruitment business for about six years.

And now I've been at LinkedIn for seven years. And I've been building, helping companies build social media recruitment strategies that entire time or leading teams doing the same thing. teams doing the same thing. And one of the things that I would suggest as a job seeker, especially someone in your position where you have been gamefully employed for many, many years, you probably haven't done this exercise. It's an exercise that you have done with all of your children. I know you have. And it could very well be an exercise that you've done with your mom. But it's a very simple exercise that involves asking yourself a simple question. What do you want to be when you grow up? It is a question that is relevant to everyone, regardless of how old you are, whether you're three years old, like my youngest, or whether

you're 79 years old, like my father. The question is extremely relevant. Obviously, my three-year-old son's answer changes day over day. But my father at 79 years old still needs to ask himself that question because he still works six days a week and that's not going to be possible forever and ever. And so unless he fully wants to just live out his days in his shop, he's going to have to figure out what that next step in his career or even his life is going to be. But certainly for all those people in between those two age brackets, it's really, really relevant. It's an exercise that you should do without putting obstacles in front of yourself that typically are there only because we think that we can or can't do something, because we've been told something throughout our entire lives that we can or can't do.

And so give yourself the freedom to ultimately think about what is it that you want to be when you grow up. You've already done a little bit of that sort of self-reflection, I think. But really critically think about what it is that that next step in your career looks like. And then the second step after that is to write it down. Imagine that you are going to apply for this job that you have just thought of in terms of what it is that you want to be and write it down on an eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper, just like you were the hiring manager and you were creating a job description for this

ideal job. It may not be the job that you get next. It may not be the second job that you get after this one. It may very well be a job that you never have, but what it does is it allows you to think critically about what the next step in your career is, understand what your true passions are professionally, and be able to have a blueprint, both practically and subconsciously, that will help you get to where it is that you ultimately want to go. So those would be the first two things that I would definitely recommend that you do, Mike, is to think about what it is that you want to be when you grow up, and then write down that ideal job description, blue sky, what it is that you want to do when you grow up and then write down that ideal job description blue sky what it is that you want to do and then put it down on paper i'm a little relieved actually when you said there was an exercise i needed to do i was worried you were going to have me do sit-ups

so i think this is do that too if you want well hey if you want to be a male model you probably should be doing a little i was gonna say so when i when i do this exercise what i want to be which you're right i'm sort of doing that already so So I got the news on the Tuesday morning. Now we're recording on, no, sorry, I got the news on Thursday morning. Now we're recording on the next Friday. And I've been trying to say, okay, if I could design this next chapter of my professional life, what would it be? And I did come down to those three options. But when you do this exercise, what you want to be when you grow up, you said blue sky it. So is it okay to be unrealistic here? I want to be an astronaut, even though this might require years of schooling I don't quite have.

But we should blue sky during this exercise. Yeah, I would say the very first version of this should be something that is ultimately free of any social or educational or any obstacles that may practically be in your way. Obviously, Mike, you know, I'm not here to necessarily shoot down your dream of being an astronaut, but it's probably far-fetched. However, if you give yourself the opportunity to say, you know what, I want to be an astronaut, and this is what it ultimately looks like, that will help plant the seeds to potentially find something in maybe that space or something, pardon the pun, or something related that you didn't even think of. So give yourself the freedom, just like you would your youngest child, to say what it is that you want to be, and then you can let the practicality of

the exercise take hold after you've already gone through the first version of it. That may not necessarily be realistic, and that's fine. Remember, this is going to be a self-reflective exercise. You're not sharing this with anyone necessarily, unless, of course, you want to. But that first version, if you do want to be an astronaut, go ahead and try and figure out what gaps actually exist, and then you can figure out which ones realistically you can fill. You know, there's going to be some things that have age restrictions, that have educational restrictions, all that kind of good stuff. That's fine. That's totally fine.

But, you know, don't put an obstacle in front of you that may not necessarily be there. No, very good. That's actually really sound advice there. And then what's next? So let's say you spend some time, some soul searching, and you do this exercise and you realize what you want to do next. How can you make that? You now have this vision of what you want to do next that you've been suddenly restructured out of the job you had. What is next? How can you make that a reality? So this should be the hardest part of the exercise. It really should. Figuring out what it is that you want to be or where it is that you want to go, what it is that you need to do, that should be the hardest part of the exercise. Then what you want to do is you want to translate

that into what you look like digitally and how that is then going to present itself when you physically meet someone. Ultimately, the way in which you present your brand online, specifically on LinkedIn, but any of the other job boards that you may be a part of. LinkedIn, of course, is not a job board, but there's an aspect of that to the network, of course. And I know, of course, you're biased, but I'm not. And I can tell you that's the big one. LinkedIn is the big one when it comes to corporate networking, if you will. And this kind of an exercise, it really is important that you're set up properly and your digital LinkedIn presence is optimized. Yeah, there's more than 546 million members on LinkedIn globally, but that doesn't really much matter.

What matters more is there's 14 million Canadians on LinkedIn, and that's a really high penetration rate when you look at it from a geography perspective. We estimate there's approximately 19 to 20 million Canadians that are employable in this country. And so there's a significant proportion of them that are already on LinkedIn. And so what you're also seeing is people that are not necessarily the quote unquote old school professionals that we would have thought of, you know, maybe five, six, seven, eight years ago when the network was much younger. you know, maybe five, six, seven, eight years ago when the network was much younger. And so we're getting people who are, you know, plumbers, electricians, hostess, hosts, waiters, waitresses, all that kind of stuff that are on LinkedIn as well. And so the reason why you want to do this, what you want to be when you grow up exercise first, and really truly understand where it is that you want to go, is that your profile or your brand or your resume should speak to those people who can help you accomplish those goals. We can easily tie ourselves up in knots by

trying to figure out what kind of profile it is that we should create or resume we should create that is going to speak to every single person out there. And that's just not realistic. You want to think of who your target audience is. And so once you understand what your brand is, then your profile should speak to that particular point and that particular point only. Imagine who it is that's going to help you get to where you want to go. Imagine who that hiring manager is. What is the kind of language that they typically use on their own job descriptions or on their company pages or in any other collateral that they use? A great example is back in the day when I was recruiting, I had an organization that was looking for somebody who had international experience.

And I found a great candidate who, on his resume, indicated that he had a ton of global experience and had that word littered throughout his profile. And when we submitted his resume, it got rejected because they said he didn't have any international experience. And so what we did is we did a find and replace, and we changed all the global words to international words. And lo and behold, he not only did he get the interview, but he got the job as well. And so it's really important to be able to speak the same language as the people who you want to consume your profile. So when you're creating your profile, you want to understand the language that the prospective employer in that industry would be using, and then make sure that you're highlighting all the things that you have done in the past and all the passions that

you have about your industry and your role, then are reflected in that profile. Your profile can really be the story of who you are, where you've come from, what it is that you want to do, and it doesn't necessarily have to follow the same format as a resume. A resume is typically one or two pages. There's a whole bunch of rules inherent to creating this resume. There's generally a whole bunch of bullet points and not a whole lot of personality or style. Whereas your LinkedIn profile has the opportunity to be able to tell the story of who you are, tell the story of where you've been, where you are now, and where it is that you want to go in the first person, in full and complete sentences. Be able to sort of explain away some of the gaps that may exist, as well as some of the things that

you're passionate about and some of the ways in which you can fill in some of those gaps. So do you want me to give you a couple of key items on your profile that you should definitely have? Yes, please. Cool. So you want to make sure that very right off the bat that you have a profile photo. Ultimately, anything that you're doing in this social media environment is an extension of what you should be doing in real life when you're looking for something new. And so once you've got that elevator pitch or you understand what it is that you want to do, you want to be able to present that right first impression when you meet someone for the very first time who could potentially help you in the industry. And obviously, when you go to an interview, you're going to look your best.

You want to make sure that your profile looks the best too. And it starts with that profile photo. We look at people all the time. We engage with them. That's the way in which human beings typically are engaging with one another. And so you want to make sure that that profile photo is in color, is nice and engaging, and delivers that sort of personality of who you are through the screen. You also want to make sure that you have a headline, and that's the area below your name. And ultimately, that is your value proposition. So for you, Mike, what I would say is that I am a award-winning or amazing digital marketing guru who's looking for his next opportunity. If you are a job seeker,

I would not be afraid to explicitly state that you are in the market for something new. And you want to give a top level sort of overview of what it is that you do. So you're a digital marketing manager. And so I want people to know that. But I also want people to know that I'm looking for something new. Sorry. No, I'm sorry. I was going to share a very brief LinkedIn story that happened to me yesterday. So yesterday, as you can No, I'm sorry. I was going to share a very brief LinkedIn story that happened to me yesterday. So yesterday, as you can imagine, I'm looking at some opportunities in my field. So I saw like, and I'm also looking for soul nourishing work as well. So I happened to see an opening at the Canadian Cancer Society. And I saw on LinkedIn, they show you like if one

of your connections is employed there, which so I saw my good my friend, a longtime friend, actually was currently working there. And I didn't know she had moved there. So I saw my friend, a longtime friend actually was currently working there and I didn't know she had moved there. And I picked up the phone and had a great conversation with her about what the culture is like and different questions about working there. And I mean, to me, that's a tremendous engagement that happened because of my LinkedIn profile and checking in. It really is that it's different, right? Then if you were to go on to a traditional job board where there is that social interaction, there is that ability for you to be able to learn more, to have that engagement with a company or with someone at an organization in a way that's different than just submitting your resume and having it sit

on the HR person's desk. So you're absolutely right. I think the next thing that you want to make sure that your profile has is a summary statement. And this is the part that can be one of the hardest things to build because we don't give you a lot of, there is not a template for you to sort of fill out. So in your particular case, I would sort of use the three paragraph rule when I'm creating a summary statement. First of all, before I get into the detail of it, remember that 60% of the traffic on LinkedIn right now is via the mobile device. And so you want to make sure that while you're giving some of the detail that you want to make sure that you are giving to a potential hiring manager, you're also doing it in a short and sweet way because they're probably looking at it on their phone. And so as you know, if they're

having to scroll many, many pages through your profile because it's super detailed, they're probably not going to do that. So in your summary statement, you want to start off with where you've come from. What is it that you've done? Give me an idea of the top level details about the background, your background, some of the things that you've accomplished, the things that you're most proud of. And then you want to go into the second paragraph, which is more about what it is that you're looking for. What is it that you're trying to accomplish? What is the ideal job look like for you next? Maybe some of the industry choices, or maybe this idea of you wanting to do something that is actually good for your soul. I think that's

something that could be attractive to some employers. And then the third paragraph would be something around you personally, right? Think of the last business meeting that you were in. I probably didn't start off immediately with a business agenda item. As a typical Canadian, we usually start off business meetings with either, what are you doing this weekend? Or what did you do last weekend? Or can you believe how cold or hot it is, right?

We usually start off with one of those two things. And so it's no different on your digital profile that to give something for the interviewer to consume about you, that will allow them to break the ice with you a little bit easier. Remember, an interview is probably one of the worst blind dates that both you and the interviewer will ever be on. They're just not fun. both you and the interviewer will ever be on. They're just not fun. And so if there's an opportunity for you to be able to break that ice, make it comfortable for both of you right off the bat, it's probably going to be a better meeting for both of you. It'll make the interviewer more comfortable. It'll make you more comfortable. And it's, you know, something personal to the level of your comfort. For instance, on my profile, I talk about some of the things that I've done outside of work that I'm particularly proud of or interested in. I've run marathons. I've gone for barista certification, and I've got a couple of different certifications. And so that's what my third

paragraph on my profile looks like. And it would give enough information for someone to say, oh, Perry, you run marathons. That's interesting. Where have you run them? Oh, I've run them in New York and Rome and Iceland and a whole bunch of different places. Oh, really? Tell me about that. Next thing you know, 20 minutes into the interview, I'm still talking about a subject that I know everything about, which is me. Makes me feel comfortable and makes the interviewer feel a little bit more comfortable too.

It also gets them to understand if I'm going to be a cultural fit in the organization as well. to understand if I'm going to be a cultural fit in the organization as well. So if you do those three things, amongst a bunch of other things that you could do, but just from a very basic perspective, if you're looking to build out your profile now, concentrate on making sure that you have a good profile photo, that your headline delivers what your value proposition is or why you're there. And your summary statement gives me an indication of what it is that you've done, what you want to do, and some personal items that will help me break the ice. I think you're off to a really good start with your profile. Okay, you mentioned earlier you're a former recruiter yourself.

So I have a question about dealing with recruiters and versus the in-house corporate recruiters who are just hiring for a particular company. When you engage, is there a difference of how you should engage or any tips on that front? Yeah, it's a great question, Mike. Ultimately, they're both out there to, for the most part, accomplish the same goal, which is to put someone in a role that is going to allow that company and that individual to be successful. But the way in which they're measured or the way in which they go about it can be a little bit different.

The agency recruiter is typically best looked at as a salesperson in the sense that they're going to be compensated for the number of people that they place every single month. And that's sort of the basic way in which you can identify a good agency recruiter versus a not a good agency recruiter, is if they're open and honest with you about how it is that they are going to go about their business. Remember that they are going to be representing likely multiple people to the same organization, and so you're not going to be the only person that they're going to be submitting forward. But the rule of thumb for me in terms of working with an agency recruiter is that you should be honest with them. You should make sure that you are

letting them know about what else it is that you have going on. There's nothing really to gain by not telling them about other interviews or other opportunities that you have. That is leverage that that recruiter can use with other organizations that they are working with to help them move the process along a little bit quicker. They can be difficult to work with in the sense that because they are representing multiple people and because they're compensated based on the number of people that they place, sometimes they can get a bad rap because people don't necessarily understand that. But ultimately, an agency recruiter is going to be someone, when you find someone who's good, that takes care of you, that understands what it is that you're ultimately looking for, and then finds that position for you, you can have a great

relationship with those agency recruiters. An in-house recruiter, of course, is someone who works for an organization, and their primary responsibility is to make sure, again, that they're finding the best people for those roles, but these are people that they are going to be working with. And depending on the size of the company, they may be working side by side with those particular individuals. And so sometimes they're going to be a little bit, they may be a little bit more challenging to work with at times, but they may also be a lot easier to work with at times. They may not necessarily have recruitment as a full-time function within that organization

as well. They may be in HR. They may be in a hybrid type of role, and they may not necessarily even like recruiting, but it's something that they have to do. And so you want to make sure that you understand a little bit about what their role is at the organization and ultimately, you know, what their primary targets are going to be. They are going to be much more concerned about the candidate experience. You've probably heard about this a lot, but more and more organizations are understanding that it's really important for all the mics of

the world who are currently looking for something new right now, that even if you don't get the job, you still have a good experience with that organization because that is something that can, you know, help that brand of the organization continue to move forward, even if you didn't get the job. So typically that internal HR recruiter will be more concerned about the candidate experience. But also they may be, they may not necessarily be as responsive because they typically can have a larger rec load than an agency recruiter. Now, when I look at this logically, it seems to me that an agency recruiter is incented to get you as much compensation as possible because they're probably being compensated a percentage of what you get from the employer. Correct me if I'm wrong, but

I would think possibly the in-house corporate recruiters may be incented to keep your compensation as low as possible because they represent the best interests of the company, the employer. Is that logic flawed in any way? I mean, it does make sense on the surface, but I'm not entirely sure that that's, you know, most progressive companies understand that that is maybe a short term win financially for them, but not necessarily a long-term win. Because ultimately, if you're not compensated fairly in terms of what's out there in the marketplace, regardless of how great that position is, you're likely going to be moving on in the future. And as you are going to experience, it's a lot less stressful to look for a job when you already have one versus when you don't have one, right? And so, you know, that puts the company in a not-so-great situation. As the market is becoming more and more sophisticated with salary transparency,

it's more and more difficult for organizations to necessarily undercut. But you're right. Typically, an agency recruiter is going to be compensated on, you know, a percentage of your first year's salary. It's not money out of your pocket, right? Of course, you're going to make as much money as the market will bear. But ultimately, a progressive company is not necessarily going to worry about that so much. And just one more question about compensation. So when do you recommend you bring up the specifics of your desired compensation? Like, so if you apply for a job via LinkedIn, and maybe

you're lucky enough to get that first interview, sometimes they want to have a phone call with you before they have the first interview. They'll probably ask you during that first phone call, what salary are you looking for? I've been told in the past not to give a specific number at that point, like wait until they want you and then you can negotiate salary. What is the best practice? I'll give you a two-part answer to that, Mike. It's really interesting because a number of different places in North America are passing legislation making that practice actually illegal. And the reason why that is, is because it can perpetuate the gender pay gap that exists. Obviously, if someone is being paid less because of their circumstance,

their gender, their whatever the case may be, then they're perpetually going to be paid less every single new role if we always know how much you're making. And again, I think it also takes away a little bit of that, you know, you should be paid what you're worth and, you know, it is probably safer for little bit of that, you know, you should be paid what you're worth. And, you

know, it is probably safer for the organization to just pay you based on your skill set versus what it is that you were making in the past. However, we're here in Ontario, and it is still a practice that some organizations will carry on. I would suggest that you give them a range. I think, you know, one of the biggest reasons I think why they do ask you that question is because they don't want to waste your time or their time. If your expectations are either just completely way out of whack of what the market will bear or what it is that they can actually afford. So, you know, a lot of times for someone like yourself or myself, who've been in a company for a number of years and we're compensated well, or we've, and we've had good reviews. And so generally merit increases come along with that. You know, we can be expensive for other organizations and it may just not be worth the time. But if you're willing to flex, then, you know, then I

think it's important for you to say, so let's just say that, you know, right now you're making, we'll use random numbers, you're making $90,000. If someone were to ask me what it would take for me to move into a new role, I would probably say north of $100,000 at this point in time. And then there's all the other plus, plus whether you're employed or not is take stock of all of the additional things that go beyond salary because there are a lot of things a lot of perks that organizations typically these days are offering their employees and it's important for you to be able to put a dollar value to that so um you know if you get lunch at work or if you get you know a gym membership or whatever the case may be whatever the perk may be they pay for your cell phone make sure that you're adding all that up and that when an organization asks you how much you make,

that you're very clear that my salary was this, but when you add in my bonus or my variable compensation and all the other kind of stuff, my actual number is this. This situation, so being restructured out of your job and then needing to, you know, replace the income, find new employment, that scenario is rather, it's a particularly difficult and dark time for many middle-aged men and women. And I hear from people all the time in their 40s or 50s or even early 60s who have this happen. And there's that sense of helplessness. This is through no fault of their own. For example, I've been restructured out because I, you know, agreed to work for my home office in Toronto. And suddenly that's not permissible. So through no fault of their own,

people experience this disruption. And I feel for people who are, you know, going through this dark period. And I was wondering with you, Perry, if somebody out there is listening right now going through this and still has questions or needs to talk about this, their professional life, how can they reach out for help? It's a great question, Mike. There's a number of online resources that you can take advantage of. I certainly can share some of the LinkedIn ones, but one thing that you definitely want to do is make sure that you are Googling your name, first of all. You want to make sure, and I know that's not necessarily a resource in the traditional sense of what you're asking, but you want to make sure that you understand what people are seeing about you. And generally, what's going to appear at the top of that list are your social media networks. And so if you are active on

Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or LinkedIn, those will typically rise to the top of that Google result. And if there are things on those networks that you don't want a potential employer to look at, then make those accounts private. I know on Facebook, and I'm sure on the other networks as well, you can make it so that your profile isn't fed into the spider that goes out and looks at all these things. So that would be the first thing that I would recommend that you do. What you also want to do is if you're on Twitter, you want to search for the hashtag jobs. That will give you an idea of some of the things that are already out there in the marketplace. And it can be a quick little primer for you to be able to see how active the marketplace is. The good news is that there is a very active marketplace, certainly here in the GTA.

There is a lot of opportunity. And I think that for the foreseeable future, the outlook is very, very bright. From a LinkedIn perspective, there's two places I would recommend that someone goes. The first is learn.linkedin.com. It's a great place to be able to get some of the answers to your questions if they're very tactical. There's even some opportunities there for you to learn about some of the things that go beyond just the how to move your mouse around on the profile. Secondly, and don't let the name of this one turn you off if you're not a student, but students.linkedin.com is a really great resource, excuse me, for someone to be able to go to to learn a little bit more

about how to build out that profile, especially from a job-seeking perspective. That microsite is written around the concept of, hey, especially from a job seeking perspective. That microsite is written around the concept of, hey, you're a student, you're looking for your first foray into your career. These are some exercises. These are some strategies that you can use to be able to build out your profile. The same strategies really apply to any type of job seeker. So ignore the fact that it says students, even if you're not, but use those best practices and those strategies that are on those two on that particular microsite. So learn.linkedin.com and then students.linkedin.com are There is a wealth of resources on this particular page that helps you imagine what that next step in your career can look like, what that next opportunity is, what it is that you want to be when you grow up. There's a really great sort of analogy out there that if I were to talk to my daughters about becoming an astronaut, I'd probably suggest that they could become a female astronaut. But why do we say that? That's not cool. Why do we say female astronaut? Why don't we just say astronaut? And that's part of that social construct that I was talking about earlier, about those obstacles that we put

in front of ourselves, even though they're not actually there. When you're doing this exercise of what you want to be when you grow up, use this particular microsite to help you remove some of those particular obstacles that we put in front of ourselves so that whether you're a man, a woman, a girl, or a boy, you just think about being an astronaut, not a male astronaut or a female astronaut. And most importantly, and I sincerely believe this myself, so anyone listening who's going through this and is left wondering what's next, everything's going to be okay, right, Perry? Absolutely, Mike.

And as I enter this transition phase of my life and decide which of those three options I'm taking for the next chapter of my professional life, I'm taking meetings. I'm open to discuss next chapter of my professional life. I'm taking meetings. I'm open to discuss full-time opportunities, projects big and small, and of course, podcasting. So if you're listening right now and there's anything of that nature on your plate you think I might be able to help you with, write me at mike at torontomike.com. I would absolutely love to hear from you.

Please don't be shy. And Perry, I want to thank you right now so much. Thank you so much for doing this. I really needed this and I feel better already. Mike, I got to tell you, I really believe in what you put out there is what you're going to get back tenfold. And you're putting out a lot of good energy

into the world right now with this particular podcast. So thank you for doing this. And I wish you all the best of luck in the future. And I am pretty confident that something good is going to come your way really quick. And that brings us to the end of our 320th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Perry is at Elvis Run. And I'd like to thank our regular sponsors. Great Lakes Brewery at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthesix.com

is at Raptors Devotee. Paytm is at Paytm Canada. And Camp Turnasol is at Camp Turnasol. See you all next week. Don't worry about a thing Every little thing Gonna be alright Don't worry Singing don't worry About a thing I won't worry Every little thing Gonna be alright

Don't worry About a thing. Every little thing is going to be all right. I won't worry. Don't worry.