Can Doesn't Mean Should (BA Q&A)

our resident career coach, Mandy. Actually I text her this week because a friend of I was like, Hey, need a career coach for one on one.

it's my vibe, you know, I love it. Okay, It's not for everyone. So she's looking it over, so yeah, hopefully. But yeah, if she decides she wants to enroll, and I'm an enrollment's not open, then you just send her

my way and we'll work it out. Okay, Okay, but that's a good opportunity to I don't know if i've and I had definitely haven't announced it on the podcast yet, but I mentioned that this is the year of reaping in my business, and I'm working on my book and I'm being very I'm trying to be as choosy as I can with my work obligations because I, yeah, I need to be able to focus on this book and get this thing done, plus still be a mom, a daughter,

a wife, all that kind of good stuff. But because of where we're at in the economy, and because I'm only doing coaching through my Mandy money Makers, I know for some people it doesn't seem like there's a way to access me. Now. Of course you have brown Ambition, Q and A, so you can send us questions like you guys do, which is great, but then you don't know when the question will be answered, or if I or if right. One of the one of the products that I have been selling for the past year is

called Nail Your Negotiation. It's over twenty scripts to negotiate whether you're asking for a raise, whether you're countering a job offer, all different types of scenarios, all types of scripts, and I normally charge forty seven dollars. I'm making it entirely free, so it's all free. I'm giving it away and just because I want to, and I just I

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myself for managing two jobs for more than two years. However, I got the remote job during the pandemic when we were all stuck inside and figure, why not use my time as well? That remote job is easy, pays decent money and comes with great benefits and a pension and help me to pay for a wedding and home and home down payment expenses and just overall has come in handy to cover inflation and interest rates increases on my mortgage. Over the last year, both jobs grossed over what one

hundred thousand dollars and I'm the breadwinner in my household. Girl, you know there's underemployed, and there's employees you were overemployed. There's not going to have This is incredible two hundred thousand dollars year jobs. Plus I can't let go of either job right now as I need the income from both. I'd also like to get pregnant in the near future and understand that I won't be able to sustain both

jobs with this many structured hours along with being a mom. Okay, please offer any advice you can, as Sis feels stuck and tired. I don't, girl, I'm actually put tired like and clothes like. We don't know what t I eedy, girl, We're black, we know taed Okay, I'm trying to see the path to getting off the hamster wheel, but I'm getting discouraged. Appreciate any online big sister advice you guys

can offer tired hamster a more context. She has three months of emergency funded that's funded, and she has eighteen thousand invested. Oh hamster, ham ham hammy ham. So maybe this sounds like yo, your cup of taytay honey.

to give. I think that's like the clear thing here. I can't make either of these jobs suddenly bring in the same amount of money, so you can drop one. What I'm concerned about is, right now you say you can't like go be the job as you need the income from both. I want to know why you need that income. Part of me is worried that you started living like your expenses got to wear. You could only afford what you spend based on your income. That's troubling.

Although I am like really proud of you for using that money to pay for your wedding and your home down. Oh you said a hometown payment. So now I'm worried. Is it that your mortgage is too expensive for what you make at one of the jobs versus the other. I want to say to you that you have permission to get off of the hamster will that you make for yourself that has served you for a time, and

now you got to think it's something different. And I think that that for you is going to look like either one of these jobs stays and you reduce your lifestyle to where you can afford it, or you look for ways to get a raise, get more money at one of these jobs, or find another job that can pay you you know what you want, so that you

can maintain your lifestyle. That's like, off the top of my head, I just I gave the same advice to a Mandi moneymaker who had been long term unemployed since last December, and she was working.

to have to give. And it may not lead, like it may mean reducing your your expenses or you know, scaling back somewhere, which which it won't feel good. But when you feel better, when you're getting more sleep, when you have free time to do things that you enjoy, like not working.

able to have kids. Jurale and I tried, and although there is like some hereditary thing where like my my eggs, you know, typically your eggs start to decline, you know, like I think they say, like at past thirty you're like, you know, you drop by fifty percent of your ability to get pregnant, thirty five even more.

my body, but my mind. And because I was not taking care of myself, you know, I didn't know I had fibroids when I went to I remember just thinkly going to the emergency room, you know, being so scared that I'm like, I'm losing a baby, and the doctors that the emergency doctor is saying, are you sure you're pregnant? I'm like, yeah, I took another test. I was like why, He's like, I can't see anything but five words and I could tell. He was like, how do you not know?

I had not carved that any time to take care of myself. And so I just say all that to say that, you know, a lot of my friends who are in their like mid to late thirties and early forties, you know, are starting to think about family planning now because they postponed and some of them won't have any issues, some of them will be able to have babies with the assistance of medical assistants, and some of them may

not ever be able to have, you know, children. And so if having children this is for anybody listening, not just Hamster wheelm If having children is important to you and something that you're wanting to do, then you want to prioritize that above all else, because there is a limit for women. You know, they tell you can have it all, you can have it all. Yeah, when it

comes to having children, there is a biological limit. And then to pretend that if you want to physically have your own children now, you know, you can always adopt the other things, you know, certainly, but if you want to physically give birth to your own baby, you know, there is a limit about when that can happen, and it drops the older you get. So you want to consider one either prioritizing having children now, or two, at

the very least, consider maybe freezing your eggs. Because the beautiful thing about eggs is that if you freeze your eggs at twenty eight and then you don't get them implanted, you know, until you're like, say forty, it's still a twenty eight year old egg. So as long as your body is fit, the egg has not aged. Does that make sense? And I didn't know that, And I wish that, like somebody would have tapped me on the shoulder and said, hey, busy, Tiffany.

At twenty nine or twenty eight, when you still had good insurance or whatever, you know, you could freeze your eggs now and still have like this really viable like series of eggs. And then when you're thirty seven and still really fit and healthy, you can have a baby with a younger egg because your body is more than capable. So just consider that as well, especially since you have a few time me you have a pension all that usually those types of jobs have health care that might

cover that. To just consider that that, Like I get it, money is so important in this world. We cannot navigate, we cannot eat, we can't anything without money. So I understand that, but you know, don't want to forget about like there has to be life lived, you know, like money is made to pay all the bills and things like that, but you know, think about what do you have to do in order to also live life beyond just making a ton of money.

you are pregnant and in the months after. And my second pregnancy was so much worse than my first in terms of the impact to my body, and I was like, oh, this is what it feels like to just be like, I don't know, I'm just old and paying from all different places and like you don't want to do it

and just anyway, it's hard. And I think that you're building a life for yourself, for the version of yourself that you are now, Like you have the energy and you do this, you do these things, and this is sort of the risk of matching your lifestyle expenses to the money that you're earning. Because if you have to keep like generating more and more income to pay for the lifestyle that you're creating, how long can you sustain that?

And what version of yourself do you have to be for that long time to be able to sustain it? And I'm not saying I want to believe that we can all be Serena Williams in the Australian Open months and months pregnant, like yes we can do that. Yes we can be on tour with Beyonce seven months pregnant

with a trombone just like killing it. Absolutely. But those are you know, very interest very unique exceptions, right, And I doubt and they were only doing that one thing, you know what I mean, They weren't also working one hundred hours a week. So just just think about that and yeah, take some of the pressure off yourself too, because, like Tip said, the pressure of being the breadwinner and having two jobs. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

my situation. I've been on the job search since January of twenty two, when I left my full time jobs because when I left my full time job because I was experiencing racism from my supervisor and colleagues, and I left feeling unsafe in my work environment. I have over a decade of full time work experience in my field at the time, and currently I have been a full time PhD student, which allowed me to be a graduate

assistant to make ends meet. Now I've been applying and interviewing, sometimes for four and five rounds for a job, but no job offer, or I would get through the interview and get a low ball offer, which I know if I took it, it would set me back in my career. I'm near the end of my PhD program and I need to secure position. At this point, I'm considering switching industries because it shouldn't be this difficult to secure a

role in my field when there are always openings. My PhD field is broad and would allow me the flexibility to work in many industries. I've been trying my best to stay upbeat and optimistic, but this situation has taken a toll on me. My question is should I continue to apply for roles in my current field or make a career switch and rebuild for context. I am in my mid thirties, no kids, no spouse. Thank you in advancing, congratulations on your new bundle.

It sounds like you're like, no, no, that with my PhD, that it could cover a wide range of industries awesome, and that you know it would it would mean and you're thinking, like you're gonna be starting from scratch, and certainly you'll be starting, you know, maybe a different industry, but not super from scratch, because you have a PhD and you still have experiences that transfer over And so, honestly, I, for my own sake, insanity, I probably would start to explore,

like what other ways can I use my PhD in industries that I'm interested in exploring? Because maybe that's a sign, you know that it's like, I mean, I don't know if the current industry that you're in that racism, because there are some industries it's baked in, you know, and maybe that's like this kind of like divine sign that's like, sis, you don't want to be over here.

scope of things. You are, and you're able to switch, you know, and your decision is not going to affect whether or not a kid is going to eat or not. Your spouse will be able to I know it's harder because you don't have a partner to potentially help with bills being paid, but to continue to get knocked back down. I just think that what I don't Oh, my god, on them. No, no, this is my sister. Oh sorry, I don't know how to turn you know, like my computer always rings.

So I'm down for a pivot. I'm always down. I'm down for being and even like calling it a pivot, which I don't mind the word pivot. But I also I just don't want people to feel like it has to be some big tough decision like should.

a little creative, that would be awesome. Maybe it's take your skills and try a different industry, take your PhD and apply that to the industry you were in, but come at it from a different, you know, job level.

I'm just trying to show you that there's there's overlap, you know, and there may be opportunities that are not exactly what you were doing before, but that could be a great fit if you just think a little bit more creatively about the skills that you have, the education that you've acquired through your PhD program, and how those can come together to provide value for a company. And also if you've i know, you've been interviewing for you know, a year or so almost you know, year and a half.

At the same time, don't worry so much about job titles. Sometimes I like to encourage people to search for jobs blind from the job title, because it can mean different things, and the pay may not even be that great, but you may get caught up and looking for a certain title. And at this point a year and a half in some industries, a lot can change, Trends can go in and out of style. So look for job descriptions and job skills that work for you and do what you

can to beef up that network. I always I feel like, if you're someone who's getting interviews but you're not getting to the final round, I want to start asking you know what has if there's been any feedback, Is it that they're just doing internal candidates? Is it that there was someone else who just had a little bit more this, that and the third? And it may not just be because you lack something, but it could be because someone

had a connection, or they knew someone or had a referral. Well, how can you get yourself some personal endorsements, some referral, some connections, and how can we, you know, start building up that network so that you can go in even stronger to the next job interview. That's what I'll say, And I'll also just say try and take a break and try and give yourself some grace because what you're

describing is really frustrating. It's okay to be really tired and really frustrated, but you can be tired and frustrated and to give yourself a break, but then you got to get back at it. Because what's the alternative of your life is you have You're only in your thirties. There's no way this is the period on the paragraph of your life, my friend, Like, there's no way there's stuff that's coming after this. You know you're gonna get there.

I like to sometimes imagine myself like one two five years in the future, thinking, oh, that's not a problem for her anymore. She's a way past that. So kind of just whatever you can do for your mindset to to help yourself see past the struggle and the challenge that'll help you get you know, get through it. Yeah, all right to two questions from b A listeners. You just need to be scooped up and held yeah in our BA embrace RBS.