Natalie Bulger 

What if the thing keeping you stuck isn't the job? But it's the story you're telling yourself about it. Lis Doggett is here today and we're gonna get into all of that — the burnout, career transitions, and what it really means to bet on you. Don't go anywhere.

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Natalie Bulger  

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Motivation N'at. I'm Natalie, your host, and this is where we take hot mess to high potential. And I'm really thrilled today to have someone on the pod with us who is going to talk about another form of coaching, development, growth aspects that goes beyond what we've chatted about in the past. So I think this is much broader, even though when I say the term career coaching or career transitions, folks probably have like an assumption that comes to mind, but Lis and I are gonna break that down for you. More Lis than me, I'm here to learn right along with everyone else as we go. I, without further ado, I'm gonna launch right into a quick intro of Lis, let her tell us a little bit about herself. And then we're gonna peel apart these layers of all of the career transition weirdness, let's put it that way, that I think we find ourselves in in life. So since 2000, Lis has been helping people break through the barriers that cause them to pause or doubt, which I think are really great just kind of encapsulations of what we actually feel in those moments when we're going through some of these shifts. And first time it was in How I Hired and now in her current coaching practice. She's been through life and lived it herself. She and I chatted a lot about this on the build up to the episode. And I love the fact that at the end, when we were talking Lis, it's all about bringing joy to other people through this process, because this is intimidating. This is sometimes really scary to go through, but it doesn't have to be. There's joy, there's happiness, there's lightness within this process. So Lis Doggett here today on the episode talking to us about all of these great things. She's going to tell us about her consulting practice and all of those pieces. But without further ado, Lis, tell us a little bit about who you are, what makes you you, and why this being the area that you found your passion in and the thing that you wanted to do with life.

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Lis Doggett 

Well, you know, I think like most careers, there was a lot of focus, but more serendipity. I kind of tripped and fell into it, honestly. And I wanted an internship and I said, I want to do all these things. And I ended up doing a career internship as a counseling student and fell in love with the work. And so I've been doing this for about 20 years. I'm the founder and owner of Hanai Career Solutions. And a big piece of why I wanted to name it Hanai is because I'm originally from Hawaii. And in Hawaiian, that's a word that we use when you have relatives who adopt — or sometimes not relatives — when they adopt children. Is the word Hanai. And so people who are kind of unofficial family in any kind of sort, legally or not legally, doesn't matter. This is my Hanai daughter. Because I was raised by a community and a community helped build me into the person that I am today. And I think it's so powerful and so important that we use the places that we are, whether that's work, home, wherever, that we use those places to not only learn more about ourselves, but to learn more about each other. And so that is really the big difference. When we talk about career coaching, a lot of times you're thinking, resumes, job search, and how do I look good in the interview, right? Like, make me look good so somebody will hire me. But it becomes so much more than that when you realize that how you present and who you are gets to be in the room. And so when you don't choose to look good, you just choose to be good, it transforms your life. And I've lived that personally, but I've also helped other people live that personally. And I am here for that journey. I am here for that journey all day long. And there's so much that our careers can show us about who we are, show us about how we show up in every aspect of our lives. And so our career is not just a vehicle for making money, it's also a vehicle for growth, expansion and love.

 

Natalie Bulger

Yeah, so much more than just the nine to five that we tend to think of a job as and a career being different maybe than a job perspective. And the mention on community, I mean, it's how you and I got connected. I always say my favorite guests are the ones that someone sends me a text and they go, I met someone that should probably be on the podcast. And it always turns out to be a really good reference. But Stephanie, you know, just she's talking to you, she's talking to me, she's like, this makes sense, this is totally perfect.

 

Lis Doggett

Thank you. Yes.

 

Natalie Bulger

And I think it's really interesting because we're both going through our own transitions within our careers. So as a coach, you're living, breathing it, you've been through the experience and we're going to get into that. But it's also to your point, it's more than just that first job, that first resume, that first kind of career counselor in college that maybe you go to, not to downplay how important it is, but it happens throughout your entire life. It's not just that entry level.

 

Lis Doggett

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's a good section of your life and it intersects with so much of your life. And I love that you mentioned like, okay, in the beginning when you're making that decision, a lot of times, a lot of other things in your life you haven't committed to yet. You haven't committed to family. You often don't have a partner long-term or somebody you're hoping will work out long-term. You don't have bills. You don't have a mortgage. I mean, there's all kinds of things you don't have at that point.

 

Natalie Bulger

Career is long, right?

 

Lis Doggett

Where making the career decision is really about you. But as you grow, you get to keep asking that question. Sometimes every six months, sometimes every year, sometimes every five years, but what am I doing with my life? Is a question that has come up for me personally a million times. And when we're too afraid to ask ourselves those questions or not in touch with our desires or real desires around those things, we can make moves that are really unaligned. So it's really, really important to build that as a skill, being able to answer that question and willing and really excited to answer that question, because your results are more exciting when you're excited asking it or answering it.

 

Natalie Bulger

And we're in a season of a lot of people, I think, doing that question, probably starting with COVID, right, which burned out a lot of different industries. So your essential workers, your healthcare professionals, folks that were all of a sudden like, I don't know if this is where I want to be for the rest of my life. So what are some of the things as a career coach that you encourage people, and I think you hinted at a few already, to think about when they're considering kind of the what's next question, and that doesn't mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It doesn't mean that you have to switch industries, but it could. So what's that first conversation look like to level set with someone to really say, am I ready for this discussion and what do I need to do to prepare for it?

 

Lis Doggett

Yeah, I think the number one thing is to figure out what is missing for you. And not, well, you can assume that it's because this job is terrible and everything's not working and all that stuff. You can assume that if you want in that first question. But in that first question of what's actually missing, then the question is about you. It's not about what the job's providing or not providing or they're doing this to me, they're not doing this to me. That's not the question. The question is what is missing for me at this stage in my life and what will I want or can I see that I'm going to need in the foreseeable future? Right? So like if for instance, you know that hey, my mom has dementia and that's getting worse, so I'm going to need a job that blank. A job I can work from home, a job that has some flexibility, a job where I have hours that I don't have to clock in and clock out. So whatever those things are in that next phase, to really be honest about what's coming and what do you actually want. And so often we're resistant to that question. And so when you clear out some of that resistance to what do I want, it gets really easy to see, okay, well, I know that these are the three things, for instance, that I want to do with the next two years, three years of my life. These are the things that are working and these are things that aren't. And if you're thinking about leaving your job, that's a really easy start. It's like, okay, well, there's a reason you're trying to leave your job. What are the reasons? It's because you don't have this and you do want fill in that blank. And then once you have that, you can kind of say, which of these things are the deal breakers? Like I cannot take a job that's going to be less than this amount of money, or I cannot take a job that's going to require me to move or travel. What are your deal breakers? What are your nice to haves? What are your I'm good either ways out of that. And then when you start to look, it's actually you're using that as a filter based on you and not based on what the economy is saying, what other people are telling you is available or not available, because for the most part, there's so many things available. There's no way for any one person to know, including me, including anybody who does this as a living. Like, I don't know every single industry. I don't know every single opportunity that exists. You might get really, really lucky and have this one company in this one place that does this one thing and they absolutely need somebody who has all of the things that you want or at least most of them. So sometimes we will also jump before as we're creating that list. That's one little pothole to keep aware of is sometimes we just disqualify ourselves automatically. We go, well, that's not going to exist. Well, who cares if it exists? It exists is question number two. Question number one is what do you want.

 

Natalie Bulger

Well, and you mentioned two to three years, which is going to be my next question, right? It's like, when do you start thinking about this? Because we're going to touch on burnout in a second. And a lot of people kind of wait till they're at the breaking point to say, what am I going to do, versus this preventative early strategic planning conversation? Because it's a tough job market right now. So there's lots of things out there, you might be able to piecemeal stuff, but it's not like you just wake up one day and go, I realized what I want to do, let me apply and let me get that job and I'm almost starting in three weeks. So what's that timeline? What should we be thinking about if we're starting to have these moments of going, I don't feel fulfilled, I am missing something. Let's be realistic. What's that look like?

 

Lis Doggett

What's the timeline? Well, you know, I think it depends on the industry that you're in. And for most people, they're pretty aware of how long it takes to get hired in their field. You know, if it's going to be a five interview process and all of this kind of stuff, then you really want to be aware of what your timeline is, easily six months ahead, easily. Six months, I would consider to be kind of a pushing a last minute decision, because, well, just because it takes a while, right? And then you're going to be looking at different places. A lot of places that I've seen, especially for people who are working in corporate, it's easily going to be a four or five interview process. And so you want to kind of keep that in mind that there's going to be some endurance time. Some lead time, I would say minimum six months. But if you're starting to question, I think you need to take it seriously. Because regardless of how long it takes you to secure that next job, if you're already feeling the tremors, you know, you're already feeling the tremors of discontent. It's important to look at that because there are times when you start to feel those tremors and you think, okay, I got to move. Sometimes it's like you're going straight to, I got to get out of here. And for a lot of people, that's been their M.O. You know, that's their M.O. is like, this isn't working, alarm, alarm, everybody get out of here. And they go and they're like, fight, flight, freeze, fawn, whatever the other F's are. And they freak out. And they just run. And it's like sometimes the answer is not to run. The answer is to really look at your current job and say, have I actually taken advantage of everything that I could build and create here?

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Have I really come in and created the connections that I wanted to create? Have I really come in here and built out the network that I wanted to build from here? Do I know everybody I wanted to know? Do I know how to do everything that I've learned how to do? You know, it's seldom that people have done that. A lot of times they jump to let's bail before they've really thought about the fact that I could just maybe create the support right here that I want. I could start working my game plan, my strategy plan on how to redesign the culture, you know? Or where could that start with me and where have I decided and told myself, I'm not powerful enough to do this? Because I'll tell you, I cannot tell you the number of times where I thought I didn't have power in a situation and I was so wrong.

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And so whenever you're starting to feel that, you know... I think before you're going to search, yeah, six months, a year preferably, because at least in that first six months, you can decide is leaving even the answer, because it might not be.

 

Natalie Bulger

Well, and I think that's where I have learned because I have a stigma I've always associated with coaching in a professional sense. Athletics had always made sense, I was like, I'm not the best, I need a coach for that. But for other things, I'm like, no, I can totally do this. But the reality is when you're in that vacuum, when you're in the space, sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. And so someone saying like, well, what education opportunities are they still offering to you? Or what's your expectation of yourself? Are you the one that's overworking or are they overworking you? And those, I think, level set things where, okay, there's a short term conversation, but there's a long term one. And so often we do end up in that little like revolving door of, okay, it's better for a second now, it's better for a second now. So having someone to

 

Lis Doggett

Right. And some of us change jobs as we do that. We change jobs and we recreate the same situation.

 

Natalie Bulger

Yeah, so having someone to put those questions out there and challenge you a little bit to think about that stuff may also help illuminate to your point, especially in these corporate worlds, all the other positions that maybe you didn't even know were within that house to explore or to look at.

 

Lis Doggett

Yeah. And maybe there's people you haven't talked to or things that you haven't done and that's okay. You get to go do them and then see if that gets you where you want to go.

 

Natalie Bulger

But we still may end up in burnout. We still may end up in one of these things. So I do definitely want to get your thoughts on this because when we chatted in our prep, it really stuck with me, this idea of making peace with burnout and having faith in the future. And it's caused me to really start to think about, I thought my issue was how many hours I worked in a week, but it may have been how I was working those hours. And so let's not equate hours with burnout or that component. What do you envision? What do you think of when you're talking about this making peace with burnout and trying not to let it taint our vision of what our own future in our careers looks like?

 

Lis Doggett

Well, and I think it starts with forgiving yourself for whatever you did or didn't do to be a part of this, because I think that's the part that actually messes people up is that they're like, well, when you're looking at your own stuff, whatever that stuff is, it gets really easy to start getting into self-loathing and self-beat-up. Now the coach pointed out that I didn't build the relationships. The coach pointed out that I didn't do all this stuff, but when you're in burnout, you're exhausted. The thought of like, let me go to another networking night, let me build a relationship with somebody, let me fight the power in some way that's going on in my organization. Like you're exhausted, but what it is is a disconnection from you.

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And so that's the thing with burnout is that you get to a point where everything is about everything that's happening outside of you. So it's serving the kids, serving the spouse, serving the customers, serving the clients, serving my boss, serving whoever. And after you've done all of that, if you're in a place where you do that first and then if you have time you come back to you, anybody who's growing as a person in leadership, anybody who's growing as a person in life, your responsibilities and your commitments are just going to get bigger. So as those get bigger, your whole day can fill up with other people. Your whole calendar can fill up with other people. It gets to a point where you're choosing which serving is most important and which serving is not because you don't have all this free time anymore. You're connected and committed in all these different directions. So as far as having faith in the future, part of it is just saying, okay, I'm here and it's okay that I got here. It's okay that this happened because so often we want to, we're already beaten down and we're just kicking ourselves. And so step one is stop kicking yourself.

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Stop going on about I never should have applied for this job. I never should have taken this job. I knew this wasn't working and I didn't do it. I knew two years ago I needed to get out of here and I didn't do it. It's all okay. It's all okay because it brought you to this point where you realize how essential it is for you to take care of yourself. You're at this point where you realize how essential it is to pour into your own cup. You're at this point where you realize what the value of you actually is right now. So if there's a way that you can understand that, then it's not about blame anymore. It's just about responsibility. Because before, like when you're talking about, and this was something that for me personally really kind of blew my mind open at one point, was that I was always looking for whose fault it was. Is it the job's fault or is it my fault that I'm not happy? Whose fault is it? I need to find out whose fault it is. And once I find out whose fault it is, then I can what? Punish them? I mean, you know, when you're looking for fault, what are you going to do?

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So then I can either punish myself or I can punish other people for making it hard for me. But when you're looking at responsibility, what you realize is, okay, I can just make the decision to pour more into me. I can just make the decision to start making promises to myself and keeping them. I can just make the decision that even if I'm in this place where, let's say, I'm not working, I'm unemployed and I don't want to be unemployed, I can make the decision that I'm going to pour into myself first at the beginning of the day. And then I'm going to go out there and interact with the outer world. And maybe there's been years where you haven't poured into your cup. I can't tell you how many high performing people I speak to and you ask them what their hobbies are and they're just like... sleep.

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That was me too. I was like, somebody asked me, you could have the whole day, you could do anything you want, what would you do? I couldn't get past sleep. Somebody asked me that. All these people were like, I would go hiking, I would go to the beach, I would sleep on the beach, oh, that's a good idea. I couldn't get past that because I'm so tired. And then I felt some kind of way and used that as another thing to like, it's like you pick something up and you just hit yourself over the head with it. It's like, whoa. So for me, I think the biggest thing is just forgiveness. Can you forgive yourself for the times when you didn't know any better? When you didn't know how to get out of burnout, when you didn't know how to leave the job, when you didn't feel strong enough to do whatever it was or big enough or whatever enough.

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Because if you start there, you can actually clear a lot of energy that has been going to keeping you safe from that. And you can use it to apply towards your future. You can use it to build faith. You can use it to build a vision for what you're excited to create. And then that creates more energy. And then it gets to go in this direction instead of it all going one way. There's a reason people call it getting the life sucked out of you, because it's just been going in one direction. So you get to get it moving cyclically again. So you're getting fed and then you do it and it's exciting and you get energy and then you do it and it's exciting. And you just want to get it moving in that direction again.

 

Natalie Bulger

Well, and I think it also takes the building of a little bit of tough skin, right? Because we've been groomed for years on what is success when it comes to career and what is success in a rounded life. And I was just talking at one of the side jobs about this and they were like, yeah, I have all this imposter syndrome, I can't balance it all together. The point I think is that if we do bring a little of that focus internally, it tells you what you need in that moment. And the hardest thing for me has always been not giving a crap what other people think. And how often do we actually see people and we romanticize this idea of, I quit my corporate job and I moved to the Caribbean and I scooped ice cream and I'm happy now and I live in this one-room shack and it's the best thing in my life. And we're like, I wish I could do that. And it's like, well, what does stop you from making those big determinations? Because you know, if we, and I think it's something I've learned since kind of going out on my own, which is that a bunch of little jobs are actually a little more fulfilling to me than a five-year strategic plan somewhere that I just have this little slice of, but at least I had the safety and the protection and all of that. So shifting that I didn't need that as much, which was a hard pill to swallow because in what world was I OK, like not having a guaranteed paycheck that came in consistently.

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But it turned out it was more fulfilling. Throw out what the other assumptions are. And odds are you're probably your own worst critic in many cases. Do you see that?

 

Lis Doggett

Thousand percent, thousand percent. You know, I was just talking to somebody about this and I'm so glad you brought this up because we were talking about something being an eight out of 10. You know, it's like something's working most of the time, it's going pretty good. And I think for a lot of us, our careers are that eight out of 10, maybe seven out of 10, right? If you're in burnout it's different, but if you're pre-burnout but you're just kind of on the edge. A lot of times, it's because you love your work. You're at work all the time because you actually like your work. It's not because you have to or whatever. It's because you're committed to excellence and you like doing it. And so I was talking about that with someone and they were like, when you get so attached to that eight out of 10, because I worked for this, I suffered for this job. I showed up when I didn't want to show up. I worked hours I didn't want to work. Sometimes, especially if we sacrificed personal relationships for the job, for the career to be able to move up. I moved away and maybe there's this relationship I left because of that, or I left this town that I love because of this, or just whatever it was, because of how much we put into it to make it an eight. We're not willing to let it go. We don't want to be wrong about the fact that this, you know, it's like, I did all this work toward the wrong goal. And that's a huge place where people trip up is that they're so attached. It's like a sunk cost syndrome. But I did so much to make this work. And so I can't let it go. Are you kidding me? I gave up everything for this. And maybe you did, maybe you didn't, maybe things worked out the way they were supposed to. I don't know. But how much longer are you going to spend giving up things to make this a pretty solid option instead of accepting the things that make you happy, not worrying about what other people's opinions are about what should make you happy or shouldn't make you happy, and actually just spending your time going toward that. I mean, I can't tell you how much money and time I spent doing things even when I started this business that other people thought I should do. I mean, I got a very clear smack in the face as far as like the exact thing where I was so like, other people are experts, they must know better. No, no, they don't, because they don't know what I want. I wasn't even willing to look at what I wanted at that point. I was going to the experts first and going, okay, what are my options? And when we're doing that, when we're putting other people's opinions above our own, other people's expertise above what we already know that we want, because when we're in experiences where we don't have it, it hurts. We know that.

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But instead of taking a stand for that, paying the prices we've got to pay for that, sometimes it's regular income, right? Sometimes it's like that steady check. But whatever it is, are we even looking at the prices? Have we even considered? Because maybe they're prices we're willing to pay to have what we want. And so would it be so bad if I let go of this thing that I built into an eight so that I could really get the things I really want?

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If that's scooping ice cream in the Caribbean, let's go. Like it's big, but letting go of the security of this is what I've always worked toward. This is what I always thought was the answer. And I don't want to feel like all this stuff that I did was for nothing. But was it really? Because maybe you're going and you're scooping that ice cream and everybody goes, my gosh, you've got to go to this place, Natalie is the best. You know, maybe your next venture becomes so much bigger because you had whatever previous experience you had.

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And now you can come to this with that previous experience, learning whatever you learned from there to come and do this. So if you were like a corporate trainer there, then maybe when you go to scoop ice cream, you start talking to people about how to make their own ice cream. Maybe you're really great at helping people figure out flavors and they're like, my goodness, Natalie told me to put these three flavors together and it was awesome. And she was so good, you know. But who we decide to be and the lessons that we learn in our lives, because we decide to do them, we give other people permission to do the same. Maybe I just love Natalie because she went for it. She was in corporate and she went for it. She lives in Jamaica now. And you know what? I've always wanted to start my blueberry farm. And Natalie did it. I think I can do it. You know, like just because of who we be, we give people permission to be who they want to be.

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So none of that was a waste. None of that was anything. We get to be really careful about the stories we tell ourselves about what we've done in the past.

 

Natalie Bulger

Yeah, it's like putting on a fresh set of sunglasses, right, with a different tint on them that gives you a chance to look back at things. And I love the framing on this because it actually will go a little out of order probably on our plan. It's not just about, I think, being comfortable with letting ourselves fail. But how many of us are in systems that are broken, that are on potentially the brink of failure, going the wrong direction, and you are, I say, sacrificing yourselves in many ways to keep it afloat because one, you're afraid you might lose your job if it goes down, or a host of other things, or we're really tied to the mission that we serve. But the point is that in doing that, what are we, again, potentially preventing from what this organization, this focus, the people here could actually do? So how do we get used to the idea of being in a career or position or job that we're devoted to and being a part of what might be, I'll call it failure for lack of other term, but it's really a redefining moment. And maybe it's not in our control to be able to be part of that redefining, but we're sitting there going, this is really just, something's gonna go bad. I don't know what to do. I want to be here, right? I love the community we're in and that we serve, but how do you navigate in those tricky... I don't want to be here when it does.

 

Natalie Bulger

Situations, and a lot of us know it as moral injury or moral distress, but aligning a system that's going the wrong way, potential failure, I'm here, I'm dedicated. How do I handle that as an employee, as someone that wants to be a part of a solution as a part of my career?

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Lis Doggett

People who are mission-driven, it can be a very emotional experience when they decide to leave a job, especially if they're in a system that's failing and they feel like they're one of the few things that are working within that system. You know, I've been there where it's like, I'm helping my students. I worked in community colleges and colleges for years. Like I'm helping my students. And even if other things are going all over the place in the college, I'm doing good work here or my department's doing good work here. And so it's really important that I stay because if I leave, then they'll have nobody or they'll have even fewer people, fewer resources. So that's one way to think about it. But the other way is this, is that if the job is not feeding you on some level, you're going to get to a point where you can't give anymore, and then you're going to start sacrificing your loved ones for the mission. If that's a price you want to pay, pay it. That's up to you. But we get to also accept the fact that things don't really never stay in their original form, including us.

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So we're organic beings, we grow, we change, we do all of this stuff. I'm in my backyard and I'm looking at all these trees that are bumping into each other and some of them have grown sideways to get to the sun and they've done all this stuff. And we've done that in our lives, you know? We've worked around bad bosses, we've worked around tough situations so that we can grow. And when people are so attached to the way that it has to be done and call that the mission, that's where people can get messed up. So it's like, okay, I'm here, for instance, my personal mission when I was working with college students, I always used to tell myself I'm in the business of second chances. I'm in the business of second, third, 50th chances. I'm like, I'm here for anybody who wants to just keep trying again, trying again. Those are my favorite students. And that was something that for me was the mission. Is this the only place I can do that though? No. Is this the only way I can do it? No. And if I'm here contributing to keeping a system that doesn't work alive, I'm inviting people into an environment I know doesn't work. Is that really me on mission? No.

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Absolutely not. And so we get to define and separate our career and position from our mission. Because your mission is so much bigger than that. So if you can do it at a different organization, if you can build and create a different organization that does things in the way that you saw wasn't working and would resolve some of those things so that people could be helped faster, better, or in bigger numbers, then why are you here robbing that future opportunity of your talent and your experience and your know-how, especially of what doesn't work and how people can get hurt in the system.

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Why won't you live? Like there's just, there's not a good reason. There's not a good reason. And so I think that's really the thing is that it comes down to trust, and you get to trust yourself when you start to, again, feel the tremors of this isn't working. This is going downhill. Maybe it's like, I know for instance, that this company is starting to lay people off and there are a lot of people that will stay in a job because they're like, no, I need the paycheck and they'll do all this stuff. But really, is it that you're staying in the job because you are helping anyone, yourself, your family, anybody? Or are you staying in the job because you want to avoid the discomfort of considering what else you can do? Because when you're hiding, the six months will go by, the one year will go by, and it's just a matter of time before you're on the chopping block. And you knew a year ago and you did nothing. And so we get to question why we're doing something, also why we're doing nothing. But it's not with blame, with responsibility. Like, I want to create something. I want this movement in the world. This is the thing. This is the reason that I'm so attached to this mission. Because people get into work for different reasons. Like, I love doing what I do, but I didn't have to do it at a college. I didn't have to do it working at a community college versus a four-year college. I didn't care which one. They hire career coaches more than most places. I would have worked in the community. I would have worked at the library, other places that they hire career coaches too. That was my mission. When we really get in touch with ourselves, it actually does help everybody else. But when we're out of alignment, you're coming to work, crying in the car before you have to try to soup yourself up and pretend that you're in integrity when you tell these people keep coming back to the system. Then are you really helping them?

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And so it gets really, it's not just you that you take out when you don't pay attention to what you really know, when you don't trust yourself.

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Natalie Bulger

And the idea, you know, that if you boil down your personal mission and why it connected you with where you're working potentially at the time, and I remember this being one of the decisions when I left my corporate job was, I can do more to affect this mission somewhere else. And maybe it's not the pretty way or maybe it's even something I frowned upon at some point in life. But when it becomes the truth that you're living, it's almost like, okay, well, time to embrace this. Like time to realize in this season again of life, maybe that is the pathway. My favorite word that you brought up, discomfort. And careers, first off, are so long, they can't ever be comfortable. They're not gonna be. You don't just sit back and enjoy it. Even when we look at quote unquote successful people, they always have learning moments. They always have things they hit upon. And one of the ones that we had mentioned at one point, and I think you mentioned there's a difference in leading people and a difference in leading systems. Just talked to another guest about kind of the same idea. And that's one of the things that I think a lot of times in our careers, we're like, we're ready for the next step, we're gonna be a supervisor, we're gonna have people under us. And then we get into it. And I know my husband goes, I don't know if I ever want to supervise people again in my life. He was like, it's just not something that brings me joy. And then there's other people that I'm there, that's their favorite part is the people aspect. They could care less about all the procedures and the policies and things they manage. They're just like, I have a team, it's great. I'm somewhere in between, you know, but those are pivot points. So I think back to the whole like not blaming yourself. If you've gotten into a role that is like

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I don't want to supervise people anymore. Maybe that does mean a step back. Maybe it does mean a lateral move, but that's completely okay because maybe you don't burn out. Like what are some of the experiences you've had with that, with people realizing what am I meant for in life? And maybe supervising humans with feelings and emotions, isn't it?

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Lis Doggett

Isn't it? Yeah. Well, I had a friend who did that and he was really torn up about it because he was like, I want to be a director. That was the whole goal. That was my thing. And he got to that point and was like, no. And just had to like backtrack it. And it was probably like a year or so that he was in the position. But he was on the whole kind of quick to move back. Once he got like six months, seven months into it, he realized this isn't actually working, I don't actually like this. And so he rounded back and ended up going into an assistant director role that was a little bit team and a little bit not, like I get to just leave myself and I get to leave my work and my systems. But that transition of becoming like a high performer in the job to becoming a supervisor, we always assume that it's like this and then this. But they're really different job descriptions, just really different job descriptions. And so if you don't really think about what it is you're trying to accomplish with becoming a supervisor, it can be really easy to get sucked into the prestige of it. I'm just going to be in charge now, especially if you're like, somebody needs to whip this team into shape and I'm ready to do it. You know what I mean? Like I'm the highest performer on the team. And when I get in charge, I'm going to use my authority to get everybody to perform like I do. I'm going to tell you right now that is not going to work and you're going to be really, really disappointed. Not because you can't get people to perform or get them excited about it, but it's a different job description to evoke that from someone, to help them connect to why it matters for them to show up in the way that they want to show up versus doing it and making the system better.

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And it's interesting because you see a lot of new supervisors when they are just moving into the position and they will wear this kind of like badge of honor of, I can do anything that anybody needs on the team and I'll get my hands dirty. I'll get in the trenches with them. Why would you do that? Your entire role is to stay out of the trenches, to make sure that they can be in the trenches and be supported. And the more time that you spend trying to do their job to prove a point, the less time you're spending making the decisions that allow them to actually be in their roles and grow. And so it's just very different job descriptions. And I loved what you said, that even at one time you had an opinion about it, even at one time you were like, I don't know if that was a good idea. How delightful that you were willing to be wrong.

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How delightful that you came into it, you took a chance anyway. You went for it. You did it. You found out it's awesome. Thank goodness you were wrong. I was wrong. You know, like it's incredible. And I remember when I was, it was probably seven years before I became a supervisor. I got into a conversation with someone who was an MBTI trainer, Myers-Briggs. And I'm certified in Myers-Briggs. I love the Myers-Briggs. Very fun. And she said, huh, with your Myers-Briggs type, why aren't you in charge by now? Because we're kind of known for being really like supervisors, like people usually like to be a supervisor. And I said, well, I don't know.

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It just didn't occur to me. But what I realized was that at that point in my career, I really didn't have the confidence in myself yet to supervise people. It felt like, no, I still need to know more. I still need to, because I didn't know that that was the job. If I had known the job description was to support people, help them train, help them see their own greatness, help them gain the skills that they want, help them identify what those skills are, helping them tap into their own motivation. If I had known that, I would have done it seven years earlier, you know, but I didn't know that was the job description. I thought higher position, more work. So I have to be ready for the responsibility. No, you have to be ready for the job description. But I spent years continuing to work in direct support of people because I didn't know, I didn't think I was capable.

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And that was a whole story that I was telling myself about how I needed to be more qualified and all this kind of stuff. But that job description was so much better suited to my personality. She was so right. I was so wrong. I was so delighted to be wrong. I loved having a team. I love not being on the front line. I loved being able to talk to people about what they wanted most and where they wanted to go. And I really grew and thrived in that position. There were lots of things that weren't working, but there were way more things that were. And the number one thing was that I was aligned with something and with the job description that really aligned to the things I cared about. So basically I got to coach students and then guess what? I got to coach staff and I got to know them really, really well.

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And so it looked, it was the same skill set in a lot of ways for me. But had I known that it wasn't just gonna be like budget meetings and needing to understand the numbers and getting the results, getting the results was easy when the staff was in touch with who they were. And I was staying in my lane of clearing way so that they could be who they were. It was very easy.

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And I had finally gotten out of my own way to be who I really was.

 

Natalie Bulger

Well, and I think we could do a whole episode just on are our supervisors actually trained to be supervisors, because I'll tell you, that was probably one of my biggest things, was there was still an expectation for a long time that you were in the trenches right with them so that you could answer every question that came up. So it was like you were them plus more and you didn't get a chance to actually do that piece. And I think that's a cultural kind of thing we've lost for a long time. And hopefully it'll come back. And maybe we'll touch on that when we do future work. But I have to call out because somehow we're already in the home stretch of the episode. Time flies. But you and I have both kind of talked about we've made this transition. We had this industry that we were a part of. We learned a lot while we were there. We've shifted out. We've talked about how long that can take. And I know it was important for me and for you to recognize that there's a set of privilege involved with being able to walk away from a job and to say,

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I'm willing to run a risk of not having that income. I will say, my husband and I had to sit down a month and a half ago and I said, hey, we're at the point where the budget needs to be talked about. And I said, just have faith, like everything's coming together. But you know, we've got a couple of tough months in here. But we had, he had an income, he had insurance, like we could lean on that. And it's not something everyone has, but even looking back, you and I both were like, well, this helped me out a lot to have that conversation. And had I done it six months earlier, it would have been even better. So what are some of the things that even if you're thinking you're in a spot where it's like, I literally cannot be without a guaranteed income, I can't take the risk, I can't take the jump, there are still some things we can do to prepare ourselves for even unexpected situations. So what are a few of those things we should be thinking about to prepare for the unknown that might be ahead of us or to set us up into a point where we have more of that ability to take that risk.

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Lis Doggett

Yeah. Well, for me, that was leadership work. That was like my personal leadership. So I got to really dive into with a coach and a community the stories I was telling myself about what I could and couldn't do, the vision that I had for the business. And in the beginning, just for the audience's sake, you know, I left my job to take care of my dad. And so I didn't leave my job with the intent to stay left from my job. I was gonna go back, you know, go back to my original line of work. And when it came down to it I thought, well, what would happen if I started a business? Maybe something might work out, you know. And I started to play with it and all this other stuff, but I could have done that when I was making a paycheck. Like there was a part of me that was like, why didn't I look into this earlier? And so one of the things is just looking at what do I want and what's keeping me in the way of accepting or understanding that. And sometimes it is my own judgment. Right. And so that was something that, okay, three years ago, maybe this was my opinion about this. But now it's looking pretty good, you know? And so just being willing to be flexible. I think some of it also is getting in touch with what you want, who you want to serve, how you want to go about that, what your personal mission is, like you said. Because even if you're making that transition from what you're doing now into entrepreneurship, or you're making it into another role, another industry, something else, or even if you're making that transition into staying at home, there has to be a part of it for you where you've got skin in that game. And a lot of times people haven't considered that. They just haven't considered like, why am I doing this? They're trying to get away from something. But what am I trying to move toward? So I think a lot of times it's like delineating, what am I trying to move toward? What am I trying to create, so that when I actually created it, I know I did it.

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So if I'm trying to get more time freedom, then I see I have more time freedom. I created that. Okay, great. And there's a confidence that comes with that as well. So when you see this was what I wanted to create, and then I created it, then okay, what's the next thing I want to create? And then I'll create that too. Look at me, I've got two wins up already. And then I've got three wins. And then every time you have to say that, that gap between I want to do this and I believe I can gets smaller and smaller until you can do anything. And so I think those pieces of it are really, really important. Whether you do that with a coach, whether you start exploring things on the internet, start following people who are doing things that you're intrigued by, paying attention to anything that gives you that little spark of, that could be fun, and start writing those things down. Any of that where you're evaluating what it is that you want, what you might want to be moving toward, what you want to create, that starts to build out a vision for what's possible. And then as you go out there and interact with other people, you start to see where the opportunities actually are. Because if you don't know what you're looking for, you're not going to find it.

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And so I think a big piece of it is knowing what you're looking for, knowing what you're trying to create. And then also, how can I do it right now? A lot of times when it comes to burnout in particular, it's like, I can't leave the job, are you kidding me? I can't afford to not have the paycheck. Okay. Well, what can I do within this job right now as it is? What do I need to start advocating for? What boundaries do I need to start creating so that I get more energy? I get more attention. I get more focus. I get more time. And that sounds really selfish, but when you're not taking care of you, you're not taking care of anybody else. I know you think you are, or you might be financially.

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But the stress, the exhaustion, the dismissal of your kids, of your spouse, because you're not really trying to deal with them. Let's face it, you're exhausted. You're exhausted at 8 a.m. So at 8 p.m., I'm definitely not trying to talk to you anymore. People around you know that things aren't right with you.

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And they can't do that. You're the only one who can fill your own cup, and who better to do it because you know yourself better than anybody else does. So good news, you're responsible and you get to do that. I think that there's a lot of things that you can do, but it starts with making sure you have the minimum amount of self care and those things are in place. Non-negotiables. So if you're exercising, it's non-negotiable. You have Sunday afternoons, I do my hobbies then, that's non-negotiable. Whatever it is, start practicing that. Start doing things you say you're going to do and following through on that. It helps build trust within you that I can trust myself to show up.

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And then it makes it easier to trust that you can make bigger leaps and bigger decisions.

 

Natalie Bulger

Yeah, and it was funny for me, I stumbled into one thing that I'm glad happened, but it was financial pieces. So it wasn't until I didn't have that job anymore that I was like, I can't refinance my car. Or, I can't do, you know. So the opportunity, I could refinance a house. And so I'm glad I did that when I was still employed because it freed up, you know, there was some extra bonus they were offering. And so now I had a rainy day kind of extra HELOC loan that I could tap into if needed. It's increasing credit card limits, responsibly. But again, you have to have a salary in many of those cases for them to be able to do those things. Look, okay, what can I refinance? Let's write out the budget. How much are we spending on Amazon? Do you have a DoorDash account? How much do you spend in DoorDash? That was my husband's big wake up. He looked and he was like, that was a lot of money last month, you know. And so I know my Amazon purchases have declined significantly in six months, and I don't miss any of it. So it's one of those like, take a month to do a challenge. If you're thinking, I don't have a rainy day fund to lean on, okay, do a month-long challenge, see how much you can stash into that savings account, even if it's 50 bucks. That 50 bucks is a tank of gas that you might need later on.