05: Accelerate Your Career in 2018 with Kaylee Houde

Chad:               We aren’t organized and so she’s going to share some really, really great tips on how we can stay organized with our network. How we can follow up, how we can manage those relationships so that they really do turn into valuable relationships and we’re going to be talking about success as well and how to really define career success. We’re going to be discussing how to connect our way to our career by connecting better with ourself. And we’ll also be talking about what it really means to be a millennial in today’s job market. So welcome to the show. Kaylee Houde.

Kaylee:             Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

Chad:               So we want to hear first about kind of how did you find your voice in your career? What, what led you to where you are now as a career coach and what’s a bit about your story?

Kaylee:             Totally. So I worked here in Calgary in oil and gas during one of the biggest downturns in history and as an hr professional. So that meant is I was managing reorganizations, layoffs, severance packages, difficult workplace complaints, and it was a pretty intense time in my life, uh, doing that right out of university. And I learned a lot from that experience, but I also, it also left a bit of a negative taste in my mouth because I was really helping people leave the organization versus helping them grow. And I wanted to really help people rather than kind of ruined their lives. So I decided to start a blog and that’s where this all began is I started writing about the millennial perspective on the pursuit of happiness, which I didn’t release for almost a year after I started writing it. And so this was about three years ago, this started and I worked in hr for about five.

Kaylee:             So I was dissatisfied with my career at the time. I really liked the people I was working with, but we all kind of felt the same way. We all kind of felt stuck in our careers and we weren’t really happy with the work that we were doing or how it was impacting people at the, at the frontline sort of level. So that’s where it really all began. And as I was supporting these folks and leaving the organization through severance packages, et Cetera, I realized a lot of them could really use some additional support. Maybe they had written a resume or cover letter in 10, 15 years, and they really had no idea how to go out into the job market. So that gap led me to the path of career coaching and getting a coaching certification here earlier this year.

Chad:               That’s really exciting. Wow. Thanks for sharing that. How so what is your focus with your, with your coaching, and you’re helping people to kind of get where they want to be in their career and what. What are you really good at when it comes to that career coaching? What’s your. What’s your focus there?

Kaylee:             Yeah, so I think my focus is helping people turn around and sell themselves back to an organization using their transferable skills and combining that with the coaching methodology that allows you to define your direction. So that’s where my motto comes in, cut through the chaos is the getting noticed. Bet. Define your direction, is establishing what your purpose is, understanding personal values and really understanding what you’re all about so that you can find something that’s going to have some work life alignment for you so that you wake up Monday morning excited to go to work versus the stagnated sort of disappointment that some people feel when they wake up on a Monday morning. Right? So it’s all about that excitement.

Chad:               Yeah, that’s really great because a lot of young people are struggling to. I’m noticing that there’s a, there’s a shift happening where this, this millennial generation that the were a part of. It’s we are examining our career with more scrutiny than, than ever before where we’re like, do I really want to be doing this? Is this given me enough fulfillment? I’ve, if you know, previous generations, they really worked hard and there’s a lot to respect about those previous generations about the career paths they took and you know, and they, they found things they enjoyed. Uh, but we, what we seem to be doing is we’re having a lot of these. I’ve heard somebody say the phrase quarter life crisis where you, you hit this point and you’re like, you know, you’re, you’re 28 years old and you’re like, do I? Do I want to be doing this the rest of my life? Is this given me enough life balance? Which is also an important thing. Is this giving me enough fulfillment? What are some other. What are some other things that you feel like millennials are looking for these days in having a fulfilling career? What’s important to them?

Kaylee:             I think that’s a really interesting question. So I’m very passionate about generational differences. I used to do some training on generational bias when I worked in the corporate world, in hr and boils down to is we’re actually all human and regardless of what generation you’re in, you probably want to feel valued. You probably want to feel like somebody cares about you in the workplace. It’s just that I think as the world has evolved and technology has facilitated this different style of communication, um, and we wear our hearts on our sleeves a little bit more. We’re more willing to post like our facebook status. What we’re writing in our diary that day, you know what I mean? So because of the way technology supported us and communicating more openly, I think we’re just more openly communicating in the workplace this is what we want and telling people that that’s what we want and that’s just the evolution of, I think the technology that’s supporting us as a generation rather than making us that different from other generations, if that makes sense. I think in the minds of our parents or I even think of my partner who’s a different generation than me. He’s still, he’s still grapples with a lot of the same issues. He just doesn’t speak it out loud. Um, so that’s, that’s an interesting concept that I like to think about is, are we really that different?

Chad:               That’s really interesting. Yeah. I never thought about how like, there’s these root things that we actually share in common with different generations because sometimes we do get hung up on, oh, they’re just so different than me. My parents generation, my grandparents’ generation, especially in the workplace and we’re trying to, uh, get a job with maybe a management team that is of an older generation and we feel like we’re not communicating properly. Um, and it can really kind of interfered with. We don’t take that time to understand, okay, where are you really coming from? And we really that different. That’s, that’s fascinating. What in your experience, what is, what is a common thing that tends to hold us back from gaining traction in our career? Especially especially our generation?

Kaylee:             Oh Gosh. From what I’ve seen my experiences, I think it always boils down to expectation setting and if you have a manager who’s not clearly communicating expectations to you, it’s very hard for you to know what you’re trying to accomplish. And the same goes the other way around. If you’re not clearly communicating to your manager what you’re accomplishing, how you want to leverage that in your career, how are they supposed to know how to help you? Anytime somebody comes to me says, I’m not getting noticed, I’m not, I’m not getting where I want to go. I say, have you had a conversation with your manager? Have you told them you want to go have you, and you can see that in a way without being entitled to. Right. There’s a difference between saying I want to be the next CEO the next 10 years and saying, hey look, I’ve been doing this work. These are the results I have so far. How do you think I can leverage this to get to the next step? Which looks like. Right, so it’s about being reasonable too.

Chad:               Yeah, definitely. I liked what you said about how the expectations to. We just need to communicate those because coming from a place of communication, miscommunication happens so often because we don’t clarify our expectations as we given them to someone else or on the receiving end. We don’t ask somebody to clarify what they just said. It’s like, like I’ve had experiences where I felt I felt stupid. If I was to ask my manager, Hey, can you actually repeat what you said or can you clarify? I didn’t quite understand because I was afraid that like, oh, like are they going to see me? As you know? Not Listening because I didn’t understand what they said, but I found that I ended up being the dumb one when I didn’t ask them to clarify because I ended up doing something wrong and so it’s so important to whether on the giving end of giving expectations that you are clear as possible, but then you also say, Hey, do you understand what I just said? You know, can you repeat it back to me? Do you have any questions about it? And then on the receiving end, making sure to ask that person to clarify if you don’t understand and don’t be afraid to feel, to feel stupid because I’ve. I’ve had bad experiences where I did. I was afraid to ask them to clarify and so

Kaylee:             definitely if I can build on that, I’m thinking about what I’ve learned through my coaching certification as well because we talk a lot about communication obviously, and one of my big takeaways there is your client or whoever you’re talking to really knows you’re listening. When you ask a powerful question related to what they just said, right? So if you’re asking that question, if you repeat back to them in their own words, okay, I just heard that you want me to do x, Y, Z, can I ask, is the scope this or is the scope? This shows that you’re listening, you understand and now you’re clarifying. So it’s actually more empowering than anything else when they are able to showcase your listening and then ask that powerful question.

Chad:               I totally agree with you. That’s, that’s completely true. Um, and it’s weird because at first glance you might think, Oh, if I keep asking questions that maybe they think it’s because I wasn’t listening to what they said, but really we all are, we all, we’re all wired to actually see that person as listening if they do ask those questions. So yeah, thanks. Thanks for elaborating on that. Um, I’m really, I’m kind of curious of your perspective on, you know, so we have, you know, you’re going to get a job, you’re trying to find a job, you’re interviewing, what is it that really convinces somebody to hire you between these two things? And you can obviously both are gonna play a part, but we have a resume, we have our experience. Okay, so we have the things that we’ve done that we already know we’re good at, that we have a track record of. We also have our passion and things that we’re really passionate about. The maybe we even don’t have a ton of experience in yet, but we want to learn what role does our, Hey, I, I’m willing to learn how to do this. What role does that play in somebody being willing to hire us versus just looking at our experience and kind of what the balance is between. Both of those

Kaylee:             might have a cop out answer because I think it really does depend. So it depends is the answer I can give for everything at the end of the day. But in this scenario, the reason why it does depend is because each corporate culture, each hiring manager, each recruiter is always going to have a slightly different perspective. And as a job seeker, you can’t control what those perspectives are, what maybe their biases are, right? But what you can control is how you present yourself, and so when I always say is that you always have to focus on what I call your circle of influence or the things that you can control. Otherwise you’ll drive yourself mad trying to control things you can’t. And so when you think about the job search and controlling your resume and what you put on it and the corporations that you’re applying for, if you’re really passionate about something and you need somebody to take kind of a chance on that, look for organizations that have a track record of doing that or the have a corporate culture that facilitates that or fosters that.

Kaylee:             The has a strong training and development department. Companies that say things like, we hire for fit, we hire for. We hire for cultural fit. We hire for personality fit. We hired for team fit. Whatever it is, that’s usually a good indicator that they’re going to hire you regardless of your skill set, as long as you meet their team’s needs and balanced them out. So everyone’s looking to have this perfect kind of diverse team and in the job posting they’ll list out what I called the Purple Squirrel requirements. So that’s their ideal candidate and I find that a lot of people won’t apply if they don’t have like 70, 80, 90 percent of those qualifications. I say as soon as you hit about 60 percent of those qualifications, give it a go and what you need to do is not focus on just strengths and past experiences and passions, but put them together, right. Showcase your transferable skills using both of those things because then you’re showing that you have some sort of strength as it relates to the job posting and you can talk about your results from past experiences, but can also talk a little bit about where you’re going as well and how you want to use them. So if you’ve done sales but you want to do marketing, call yourselves a marketing person and then talk about how in your sales experience you’ve used marketing skills.

Chad:               Yeah, that’s brilliant. That’s really helpful. Thanks for clarifying that. That’s, uh, so, so what I got from that is just to, that, you know, I hadn’t even considered that, like do your research and see what the company culture is because you’re saying it all depends in somebody might put more weight on your track record and Hey, I need you to have 10 years of experience in this. Whereas somebody else might be like, hey, we want to hire somebody who’s young and passionate who doesn’t have a ton of experience but is willing to learn very fast and that, that’s, that’s, that’s really helpful. Thanks for that.

Kaylee:             Yeah, pressure.

Chad:               Um, I want to kind of shift gears a little bit and talk about something that, a phrase that you’ve used is how do we, how do we discover our possible selves? What do you mean by that?

Kaylee:             So that term has come to me a few times and I really like it because there’s this myth out there that there’s one dream job and that’s complete in my opinion. So the reason I say that is because there’s so many ways you can use your transferable skills to do something that’s a value to the world. And also speaks to your heart and for me that became career coaching as an independent, but it could have also equally been being some sort of teacher or professor because I would use the exact same skillset and what possible selves means is that you’re exploring, you’re exploring how, what you like plus what you’re good at matches with what the world needs and what you can get paid for at the end of the day. And that’s what it is. You’re designing your life, right? You’re not just saying, I have to be asked and if I’m not acting, I’m a failure. You’re saying I’m going to try x. If x doesn’t work out, I can be. Why? Why doesn’t work out? I can be Z and z doesn’t work out. Let’s go back to a like you can change your mind at any point in this process. What’s more important is creating some sort of momentum and trying things out for size and trying to align with what you like and what you’re good at.

Chad:               That kind of brings up something that just came to mind about how we, uh, we often get stuck trying to find our purpose but not moving forward throughout that whole time. It’s like I liked what you said about how, you know, triax. If that doesn’t work out, try why then go back to a, we, uh, you know, I, I’ve experienced this and I’ve seen people experience this where we, we end up kind of taking, taking too much time, being like, okay, what is like you said, what is my dream job? What is my one purpose? And we get so hung up on that question that we’re just kind of sitting still not really doing anything. Thinking that somehow fate has determined that worse were meant to be here for one specific purpose and have, I just need to find out what that is. Finding out what some predetermined purposes can really hold us back, opposed to just be like, let me design my life. Let me try some things. Let me just figure out what I want. But if I don’t know what I want, let me try this. And then let me try this and it’s okay to change my mind along the way. Do you have anything else about to say about that with just how we can get stuck kind of finding our purpose.

Kaylee:             Oh, there’s so many things I can say about that is one of my favorite topics, but I think who said this best? It was a UK organization called 80,000 hours, 80,000 hours.org I think is their websites. They are of the philosophy that if you’re going to spend 80,000 hours of your life at work, and for most of us in North America, it’s closer to 100,000 hours. It’s you better like what you’re doing and so why not take the time upfront to try some things out? And they also talk about happiness and that end goal, right? So if you don’t know where you’re, what happiness is to you, I’d say start there. Right? So you’re like, okay, this is the lifestyle that’s going to bring me the most happiness, whatever that is to you. For me, that’s a balance of things. Right? And so if you don’t know what that lifestyle looks like, how can you work backwards to choose a career that facilitates that?

Kaylee:             So I would say start with what is happiness and for. And there’s a lot of research on happiness showcasing that. Things like giving back to your community can foster happiness, being connected with other people, like having conversations like we’re having right now fosters happiness because we’re connecting on another level deeper than, hey, the weather’s this today, right? So when you have those deep human connections, when you are giving back to your community, when you are helping others, typically that fosters more happiness. But happiness can look like different things to different people. So I say start with happiness. Start with your end goal and work backwards and that will give you some ideas of what to try out to see if it works.

Chad:               That’s great. That’s great. Thank you. Let’s, let’s talk about connection. Let’s talk about how. How have you been able to connect your way to your goals and what is. What do our relationships have to do with our success and what has it had to do with your progress and success so far?

Kaylee:             So I wouldn’t have a business if I didn’t have connection first of all. Right? So I. I didn’t go out into the world saying I’m going to have a business one day. That was actually not. What happened was I had to find success based on society’s definition and then once I achieved society’s definition of success, I realized I felt empty and unhappy and I was trying to figure out why. Why do I still feel unhappy? Even though I have the job, I have the apartment that I want to have enough money to pay all my bills and do whatever I want. Really. I’m like, why am I so happy? And I realized it was because I had to find success based on some predetermined societal norm versus what was true to my heart. So when that comes down to connection, what ended up happening was I was trying to figure out what lifestyle would be bring happiness.

Kaylee:             To me. That lifestyle really does revolve around human connection and it revolved around connecting with my life partner and spending more time with him and connecting with my dog and hanging out with her and connecting with other likeminded individuals who I want to see the world as this opportunity to make it a better place. The value of connecting with others. I can’t really, really explain in a few words like this, how important it is. It’s everything I wouldn’t have the clients I have today if it weren’t for connecting with others and just being open minded.

Chad:               I am new to the world of connecting with people for my own kind of experience. I’ve, you know, I grew up kind of avoiding connection with people. I was more shy. I had a hard time going out of my own way to seek relationships. Uh, you know, I would, I, I appreciated close relationships and um, but I, I had to wait until somebody came to me and initiated that and I had a hard time going out of my way to seek those relationships. And after college when I started to try to pursue a, a filmmaking career, I, um, I was hoping that maybe my, my skills with what I did would be enough. I was like, okay, well I’m good enough of what I, what I do. So hopefully people will be like, oh, okay, well he’s good enough for what he does. So I’ll go ahead and hire him and I’ll give them opportunities.

Chad:               And in I remember going to a, I don’t go to a film festival. I know I’d make a sh, sh made a short movie. I went to a couple of film festivals and I just, I was terrified to actually network with people at these film festivals, so I would show up and I just kind of sat in the background and it was a total waste of money for me to go there. But again, because I didn’t talk to anyone and they make any connections, it’s funny, [inaudible] I, I was always so concerned about what to say when talking to people. And I, I didn’t realize until I, until I read a book called, uh, just listen. It’s a really good book on listening and it talked about how if you want to be interesting, just be interested and that just switched in my mind and everything just flipped upside down and before you know it, as I just told myself, I’m, I am 100 percent interested in this person right now.

Chad:               I’m eager to see what they have to say. I’m passionate about getting to know them as a person. All of a sudden I knew what to say. I didn’t have to think about what am I going to say next? What am I going to say next? I knew what questions to ask. I knew what to say because I was generally will at first. I wasn’t genuinely interested in them because I wasn’t interested in people. You know, I, I avoided connecting with people, but then as I just kind of faked it and I’m like, no, what? I’m interested in this person. I’m really interested before, you know, what I was actually getting really interested in people. I’m like, wow. Like I love people. I love connecting with people. I love learning from them. And, uh, and, and now I’m on this journey of, of this, why this, why launched the show so I can, I can interview people and continue to learn for myself how to connect and how to connect my way, my way to my own goals, but also so that others can benefit from that as well. And so, um, it’s yeah, connection. I’m starting to feel what it really means to have that connection and how important it is.

Kaylee:             Yeah, that’s exactly what I was going to say. It’s not really about what it is you should say or not say. It’s more what, what can I ask? How can I get this person talking about themselves so we can figure out either where we have a common interest where the wind, when kind of solution is. If there’s a issue at hand and remember that people are just people. Y’All are kind of the same to a certain degree. We all just want to be heard. We want to feel appreciated and we all are just trying to do the best you can with what we’ve got.

Chad:               Like you said, people are all the same and we’ll have our own interests and our own paths and everything, but deep down we all need that connection piece and that’s just across the board, you know, when we all want to feel valued and when we connect with people we do feel valued and they feel more value, we feel more confidence and it really helps in that way. What are some tips that you have for how to better connect with people in form mutually beneficial relationships?

Kaylee:             Gosh, I think the main one is just just say hello, like literally just start there and not worrying too much about it because you will sometimes you just don’t jive with someone. You know how that is. Right. And that’s okay because yes, lives in the land of no. So there’s. I would say if you go at networking, like you go out everything else with an abundance mindset versus a scarcity mindset, you’ll be fine because it’s more along the lines of who cares what they think of me. If they’re not the right fit for me, they’re not the right fit for me as a connection. Fine, and that’s okay because yes, lives in the land of. No. The more nodes you receive in life, the closer you are to that. Yes, and I like to give the example of j dot k dot rowling because everybody knows her and as the author of Harry Potter, she went to 12 different publishers before somebody picked up Harry Potter. So yes, lives in the land of. No. So if you strike out 12 times before you make a real meaningful connection with someone, remember you’re doing just as good as jk rowling.

Chad:               I recently learned that and I liked the way you put that, like you got to go through these notes to get to a yes because I’ve had a lot of experiences in the last few months where I’ve developed certain connections and it took time and it takes time to connect and it takes time to have those conversations. But that didn’t lead anywhere and at first I was like man, like I swear like more like 60 percent of the people I’m connecting with don’t pan out the 40 percent that do. And my first thought was, is this a, is this like a waste of time? Because I, I’ve always been obsessed with like being super efficient with my time and so I’ve, I really struggled when I, when I see things as like a waste of time and at first I was seeing the relationships that didn’t pan out or like we didn’t really connect. We didn’t have like a connecting point as a waste of my time. But then I realized I’m like no, like, like it’s getting through these no’s are these relationships that aren’t working out is leading me to the ones that really are beneficial and that really are working out and it’s worth it. It’s worth it to get through the ones that because they’re not a waste and you never know where that connection could lead to somebody else that is more valuable down the road and so forth.

Kaylee:             And I just want to. How long did it take us to actually connect from the first contract? We had a couple of months because I was traveling and I was setting up certain pieces of my business and I was a bit of a gong show and people generally are a little bit of a gong show and like I said, just trying to do the best with what they’ve got and so sometimes that persistence pays off as well. Right. Like I think I said we’re going to reconnect in June and then we reconnected in June and here we are. It’s July, so it took us I think three or four months to get to this moment. Right. So I always like to reflect on that and I’m like, you too. I was laying on the couch literally last night thinking I’m doing all this work but I’m not seeing the payoff and I need want those to be closer.

Kaylee:             But I know that in relationships they’re not and it’s driving me crazy, but that’s the thing. There’s a disconnect between the moment you connect with someone and then there’s the building of the relationship which is kind of a cyclical thing and then there’s the sometimes an end result. Sometimes those results continue to be an upward spiral and you connect over time and things progress and heck, you might have ended up with a new job or a business partner out of it. Right. But it’s not immediate. People don’t trust you immediately. That’s especially with the nature of the Internet and information overload. You have to again, cut through the chaos.

Chad:               I’m really glad you brought that up. I literally, two nights ago, I was just contemplating that very thing because I was, I was reflecting, I was talking to my wife about how I’ve been building, you know, various relationships, but like it’s, it’s taking awhile to connect with you. It took like three months before we’re having like a full conversation and I was reflecting a lot. I’m like, wow, like relationships really do take time to cultivate and I have to be okay with that because I think I, you know, I’m coming from a place of wanting these immediate results and, and, and okay, if the relationship doesn’t turn into anything within a week, then it’s not worth it. But I’m realizing I’m like, wow, like it, it takes time because everyone’s really busy and we’re all trying to manage all these different relationships, but it’s okay that it takes three months, four months, five months, six months, a year before you see some kind of a fruit or you see some kind of, Oh wow, this is a beneficial relationship and that’s okay. You’re in it for the long play. And I’m realizing that literally this week I’ve realized, I’m like, relationships. You’re in it for the long play. You’re, you’re, you’re cultivating these relationships over a long period of time. A lot of times before you see any kind of like a business benefit or some kind of like, hey, let’s collaborate on this and let’s, you know, provide value to each other and we have to be willing to have that patience.

Kaylee:             Hundred percent align. That’s awesome. I love it. Yeah. I was thinking about the exact same thing and I think about if you are in a service based business and you are attracting clients or you’re in a sales role and you’re trying to sell a product to someone building, that relationship always pays off and so does persistence, so following up, always adding value. It’s not saying, Hey, buy my thing, buy my thing, buy my thing. Let’s just checking in and saying, hey, I was thinking about you an article that made me think of you or whatever. Right? And so I think that’s the other, the other piece that goes along with that abundance mindset versus a scarcity mindset. If you’re coming from an abundance mindset, you’re not desperately seeking money or desperately seeking a job, you’re coming at it from, you know, those jobs and those money are out there, but what’s more important is maintaining the relationship.

Chad:               Do you have any tips for how to manage and stay organized with these relationships? Because I’ve noticed that as I’ve been connect to use a lot of apps to connect. I’m getting involved in Linkedin. I have an APP called Chapar, you know, I think that’s where we first connected and uh, it’s an uh, you’re making all these connections, but sometimes I’m like, Whoa, like I have all these conversations I haven’t finished and I have all these people I’ve connected with. How do you stay organized with building a network and following up?

Kaylee:             That’s a really good question and it’s been kind of a journey for me to be perfectly honest with you. So when I first started job seeking and that’s Kinda where my strength lies in this job seeking kind of space, I would actually manage everything on an excel file and I would say this is the job I applied to, this is the date and I’d have a folder for each job where I saved the job posting because they take these things off the Internet by the way. So save them. And I would uh, like check in, like I’d say, okay, this is my contact at that company. I checked in with them every seven days and I check in with them three times until I got that rejection letter. Right. So that was my process for job seeking, but when it comes to my business I wanted it to be less of a formula because people don’t operate based on formulas.

Kaylee:             People are a lot more fluid and I wanted my life to be more fluid as well, which is one of the challenges I’m working on and my personal life. So for me to be more fluid, I actually use this application called to do its to do list without the l and it allows you to do project management and you can put tasks to do list whatever in it and I use it as kind of a pseudo crm tool or customer relationship management tool. So the way I organize it is I basically put everyone that I have a meaningful connection with in this app and I have like lists of when I met them and I where I met them. So if you look under your name Chad, it’ll basically say name, email address, phone number, where we met and whether you’re a leader, collaborator. And so I use that to kind of check in on once a week.

Kaylee:             I go through this list and I go, is there anybody I should be reconnecting with and if there’s something very specific I want to connect with someone on, I actually turned it into a task so it filters and give it a deadline so it showcases on that deadline with all my other to do list for that day that I should follow up with so and so. So I really like using that because it reminds me to follow up with people that I really want to follow up with but also doesn’t stop me from following up with other people as well.

Chad:               That’s great. I’m making a note of that because I’m going to start doing that starting this week because that is going to help me a lot and organized with, with managing my network and building your relationships. That’s, that’s fantastic. Thank you. Um, in your, in your own pursuit of kind of building a new business and in your own career, uh, what’s, what’s one thing that you’ve had to disconnect from maybe in your own behavior or your thinking and what’s one thing you’ve had to connect to in order to get unstuck and move forward?

Kaylee:             And I think I’ve already mentioned this a little bit, but for me it was just connecting with society’s definition of success, which is really hard because society is constantly around you with your television commercials telling you which car is to buy all the way down to your friends and family who are asking you, why are you running your own business? Why did you give up the security of your full time job to do this? And so for me it has been disconnecting from that. And the way I do that is I read my manifesto or the reason why I’m doing all this to myself every morning to remind myself, this is why I’m doing this. I don’t care what anybody else has to say about it because this is my life and I’m designing my life right now. And so I do that every morning and so that’s Kinda where that reconnection comes in.

Kaylee:             So it’s connecting with my heart is a lot of it because I’ve always been a very logical person. Everyone said, Kayla, you should go into accounting or finance. I got great grades when it came to numbers, but it wasn’t what I was passionate about. It wasn’t what made me excited to wake up in the morning. What makes me excited is the relationships that I have. Chatting with people like you. So I built my life around that and following my heart and really trusting that gut feeling that I was having was the biggest thing that I had to really learn how to connect with again because I really discounted it for a lot of my life now. I basically everyday I think about what feels right versus what mentally or logically is right. And I marry those things together. I don’t discount the logical side of my brain completely, but I’m married. I marry those things together.

Chad:               So sounds like you’ve what you really connected to, to move forward with you, connected with yourself on a different level. And that’s, I like that because you know, I, I like to see it, how we, we, we communicate with people and what comes out of our voice, what comes out of our body language is very much affected by what’s going on in here inside of our brain, in the way that we’re talking to ourself, our ability to connect with ourselves and trust ourself affects our ability to trust other people and build trust with other people and connect with other people. And so that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s really great. How you, how you shared how it, it’s, it’s what you really had to connect to with was a different level of yourself before you could then again connect your way to where you want it to be in your career.

Kaylee:             A good example of this as they often use like the pitcher example, like if you are a pitcher and you’re trying to pour into somebody else, especially for me as a coach, I’m always pouring into others. I need to have a full picture like that. That glass of water, that pitcher of water needs to be full for me first in order for me to pull it, pour it into somebody else, so I do a lot of work on self care and making sure that I’m full every morning as well. So it’s that connection with the self.

Chad:               Do you feel that that plays a part in you being a. You talked about different. We all have to define success for ourselves. Do you feel like that picture being full is kind of part of your definition of what it means to be successful?

Kaylee:             Oh, definitely. I’d say it’s probably a good half of it. My success comes from making sure that I’m ready to be the person I want to be when I go out into the world and pour into others.

Chad:               For me, I had, I had to re, uh, I’m on a, I’m on a journey as well as just redefining words for myself that have hurt me for a while. So like success, I always saw as you know, you get straight a’s in school and then you go and you find a great job and you earn lots of money and you know, that’s what it was kind of drilled into me, you know, society’s definition of success. And as I was, you know, had the pressures of, of supporting a family. I still saw it that way and I was stressed out a lot in my money, was managing my emotions, which is not a good thing, you know? It’s like when I’d get an influx of I was, I’ve always been self employed even when I was doing my video stuff and so it, my income would go up and down and when I’d get an influx of money it, like made me too excited and when I would not get enough I’d be way too depressed.

Chad:               And it was managing my emotions because of the way I defined success is that I decided to redefine it as, you know, what success is when one, I’m satisfied in my relationships, you know, with, with not only my family, but then in the email my professional space, I have that connection. Um, but also it’s when I, I know where I’m going and I know I’m going to get there. It’s not necessarily that I’m a in a constant state of achievement because we’re always going to set new goals and we’re always going to be heading somewhere new. Right. So it’s, it’s, I think sometimes we see it as like this end point of, you know, once I finally hit success, then I’m good to go the rest of my life. Like any people that you may, you may perceive as successful, they’re constantly setting new goals and they always have a new desk destination of where they’re heading.

Chad:               Um, so they’re never hitting this point. Sometimes we get so fixated on, once I finally find success, then I’ll be happy the rest of my life. I’m like, so you’re just going to stop. Like once you find success, it just ends and now you’re just going to sit there with all your money and happy day than the happiness and whatever. No, that’s not how it is. We continue to progress. It’s because we keep progressing and setting new goals that we are happy, that we have that joy in his connection being the string throughout all of it. That is what really gives us success and

Kaylee:             that goes back to I think one of the first blog post I wrote was about happiness and how happiness is a journey, not a destination, which I’m sure you’ve probably heard that before. You can always define success as this perpetual, perpetual nature of goals, but then you’re not going to reach a destination. You’re gonna. Wake up one day on your quote unquote deathbed and you’re gonna say what? I experience, what was my value of my life? And you’re gonna say, well, I achieved all these things, but did you achieve happiness in that process? That’s why I define success as a combination of happiness and balance as I’m approaching whatever my next school is, and I want to preface this by saying, this actually isn’t easy. I know we talk about it pretty casually right now. It is not easy because you got patterns and pathways of neurons in your brain that had been firing the same way over and over and over again for your whole life because society or parents or somebody keeps telling you this is what success is. So in order to change that and flip it and say success is actually this thing over here, you’re creating a new pathway. You’re creating a new pattern of thought that takes time, so don’t beat yourself up if you are new to this topic or if you’re new to this journey. It does take time and there will be setbacks and that’s okay.

Chad:               Yeah. Yeah. You’re making a physical change in your brain and that takes as much effort as far as building up muscle as you’re exercising, you know, and so yeah. Yeah, no, I liked that. Brings up the. I want to kind of build off that even more about how like if we, if we define success as just the moment when we achieve a goal which lasts for like one second, then we’re going to look at our life and be like, I was happy for 60 seconds of my life, you know, the 60 goals that I achieved, one goal every year or something, or I was happy for that momentary second and I was unhappy there throughout the whole pursuit of my next goal because I’m only defining it by that moment when I achieve it and so it’s so damaging to be defining our success by only that moment when we achieve the goal. But like you’re saying, if we embrace all the wonderful things we’re learning along the way as we pursue a goal, well the people were connecting with all the little successes along the way. All the skills we’re gaining, all the, all the fun we’re having, all the things we’re learning. Then we’re happy throughout that whole pursuit and it’s not just, yeah, in the second and we achieve it and that can be. Yeah. You don’t want to think of it like that.

Kaylee:             Exactly.

Chad:               Um, so as we kinda wrap this up, I want to just to close off by talking about what’s a. have you ever kind of, well, how have you been using modern technology to kind of enhance your life and career? You know, we’ve engaged in various ways on linkedin and there’s different tools out there. How have you used the internet and our modern technology to gain traction as opposed to it being a distraction?

Kaylee:             That’s huge honestly, and I think that I’m not perfect at this yet and there’s always room to grow. But one thing that I realized is that my network is across Canada and uh, really across North America. So my brother’s in Los Angeles, my parents are in British Columbia. I have friends across Toronto and these are all pretty far away from each other, like three, four, five hour flights just to talk to the people I care about. So if I didn’t have the Internet, I would not have a lot of the most important relationships that I have in my life. And so it’s very important to me that I leveraged that, but also manage it as, like you said, it can become a distraction. So instead of focusing on things like how many likes on instagram or facebook I have or how many views even on Linkedin I have on a post, I really think about what value I’m adding.

Kaylee:             I really try to think about if I’m going to post something, is it a representing my brand, is it who I want to be when I grow up? And I always use that concept too. I want to be when I grow up because it doesn’t matter if you’re 18 or 58, you still want to be something when you grow up. So I always think about who do I want to be when I grow up, when I’m writing and drafting either posts or linkedin or whatever. And I found it to be really, really helpful. People have connected with me on linkedin saying, Hey, I really liked your articles or your posts. I would like to keep following you. That’s why I’ve added you. And I always ask that question. What inspired you to connect with me and basically what I’m asking is why, why should I keep you in my network? Why? Why is this a connection that needs to keep being fostered? Because there’s information overload and everything and so I limit my intake of social media to twice a day unless I’m using it for something like this where I’m building a real relationship. Right? So I try to think about what translates into real life versus what stays on the Internet.

Chad:               What’s, what’s Kinda one hack, one little tip for like how to use even specifically linked into develop a network or to cultivate a relationship.

Kaylee:             I guess for me, I, I always turn it into a phone call so I still leverage. I still leverage a online tools because I’m connecting with people all over the world using apps like we are today, zoom, skype, facetime, whatsapp, you name it, but I’m taking it from that surface level. Hey, I wrote an article and turning it into a conversation. So if somebody is interested in what I have to say, I invite them into having a conversation with me. So I look at my stats and how many people have connected with, I’ve built meaningful relationships with from linkedin and I track that using my crm tool that was telling you about and I measure that and I say, okay, am I connecting with a lot of people? Are these actually real relationships? Do I remember who this person is? I think about all these fluid kind of factors. When I look at these data points once a month and I go, am I, am I doing what I said I wanted to do? Is this working? And when I notice, for example that people from instagram aren’t turning into meaningful relationships, I spend less time there because that’s not the goal.

Chad:               So let’s, let’s remember that everyone who’s watching that it’s, you know, it takes, it takes effort to build and manage a network, but we to really make it work for you in gaining traction in their career. We need to be very organized and have these systems that, that Kaylee just shared with us. Great tips for systems and tools that we can use to organize our network to follow up. Because if we don’t have that in place, then we’re going to start a lot of conversations and not finish them. We’re gonna. We’re gonna start a lot of a lot of relationships that don’t really turn into real relationships and we’re going to get cynical about networking because we’re like, this doesn’t do anything for me. This isn’t leading anywhere, but it’s because we, we need to be organized so that we can finish those conversations. Then we can follow up and what you’ve shared with us is really a great tips for staying organized with that in that way. Is there anything else that you wanted to share?

Kaylee:             No, I’ll just build on that a little bit. Maybe around networking too, as a lot of people have this kind of funny taste in their mouth about the word networking and that’s why I don’t, I like to call it that. I usually use the word relationship building. Um, and so when you are now working in, you are staying organized and you’re using all these tips. Don’t lose the humanity no matter what it is you’re doing out there in the world. Don’t lose the humanity because it’s super easy to in artificial intelligence world that we’re moving into, but as soon as you lose that human touch, as soon as you lose your humanity and connecting with people on a human level, you’re losing the relationship. So just keep that in mind.

Chad:               That is a great closing statement. Don’t lose the humanity as we are seeking to build these relationships because at the end of the day, everything’s cocreated and in every business is the result of many, many people along the way through those connections that helped it to grow. Right now you are co creating my business air light and I help and I and I and, and, and I’m helping to cocreate yours just by having this conversation. You know, we’re, we have our own focuses, we have our own thing, but we’re all in this together helping each other to build these things that are helping people. And it’s really, really cool. So I’m sure you all agree with me that he knows a lot about how to gain traction in a career and how to find the success that we want in our career. As a career coach and so, so Kaylee, where can our viewers find out more about your work and they learn from you, how can they follow you? How can they connect with you?

Kaylee:             Yeah, for sure. So I’m both online and in person as a career coach, so if you’re in Canada gave me a shout but I do support people across North America using apps like we are right now and so you can check me out on my website which is khcareercoaching.com, which is my initials career coaching.com. You can check me out there. I’m on Instagram, I’m on twitter, I’m on Linkedin a, I check linkedin more often than not, so that’s a good place to find me. I’m on facebook as well. Um, so connect with me at any of those platforms. I post daily content value added tips and tricks. I Post quotes that inspire me as well as I go through my day. So how can I help you reach your next level in your career or if you’re going through a career transition in general.

Chad:   Perfect. Well thanks so much. I’ll definitely make sure to include those links in the show. I hope that all of you learned some really great tips for how to improve our connections from the inside out, from how to connect with ourselves so that we can better connect with people from out of state, organized from how to keep our network organized, and then of course, how to define happiness. And so I encourage all of you to choose what you want happiness to be for you. Make that definition, write it down, define what success means to you so that you have a starting point as you seek to gain traction in your career. So thank you so much, Kaylee, for being on our show has been a pleasure.