Welcome to the new manager podcast. I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello, and welcome. I'm glad you're here. And I hope you're doing well today. I wanted to start with a celebration, a couple of my clients have started new jobs very recently, and there are kind of two things about this that I specifically wanted to share with you, with one of my clients. They found their job and got hired a lot faster than they thought it would happen. Their expectation was based on the experience.
They had the last time they were looking for a job, which was about two years ago. And at the time it was more challenging and that was just like a less pleasant experience. And so as they were approaching this current job search, they were preparing for it to be unpleasant and for it to take a long time and what they didn't realize was that the job market has changed what they're looking for was actually I'm going to line up. Really nicely with something.
Somebody else was looking for and like the whole process just happened a lot faster. And what we also did in the course of our work together was talk through their career Journey. So they could really feel more clear and confident in sharing their story about the career Direction. They had Chosen and the changes along the way and why were they were really interested in this new job and this new company in this new role and things.
A lot faster than they planned. And I thought this was such a great reminder to share with you, which is we often have our past experience, and then we put it in front of our eyes and we look at the present through the lens of the past. Now, sometimes, this is helpful, right? It's one of the ways that we learn from our past but it's helpful to be aware when you're doing it.
Because what can happen is you assume the experience you had before is Going to be the default repeat of what's going to happen going forward. And so, the reason that becomes problematic is that you don't prepare for what's in front of you. You're actually preparing for the past because you're assuming the past is going to happen again, and it can be hard to see this when we're in it. And so I wanted to name that so that you can be aware of, are you? Trying to plan for and prepare
for what is happening now. And what is like what you want to have happen in the future. Are you doing that by putting the lens of your past in front of you? And it's like, you're actually trying to solve for something from two years ago rather than simply being present in the moment with what's happening now and kind of letting go of the expectations, that things will be. Now the The way they were before.
So that was one thing. And the other thing is that I have another client who also is starting a new job and it's a big job with a big title and a big salary. And one of the things they are finding is all of the insecurities and proving that they had in the past. It is still with them in the present. And this I wanted to share it because this is something. I see a lot to where we think all I really have to prove myself. I really Them to believe that I
can do this. That I'm up for the task. I'm ready for this new bigger responsibility. And then what happens is, you get it and then you freak out, you feel all that insecurity flare-up, you worried, you know, am I up for this? This is different than I've done before there. Are these unexpected challenges or unexpected things that I didn't know, you know how it would be. And what happens is that
insecurity that we have. Have flares up no matter what is happening around us. And we sometimes think, if I have a big title if I have a big salary, if I have a lot of visibility, if I'm in the in the driver's seat and I am in the one who gets to make the decisions.
Then I will really feel confident because I must be good at what I'm doing in order to have this new job because what we think is the reason people have big jobs with Salaries and big responsibility that must be because they're really good at what they do. And those are all things that don't always go together and sometimes that in itself, can be incredibly disappointing when you realize, oh my gosh, all these people who are working at this level.
Like they are also humans and they're not always quite good at what they do. It can sometimes feel like a disappointment and kind of a shock. And so I wanted to share that with you because if you are in a situation where you've gotten a promotion or you've gotten a new job or you've changed Industries and you're so excited about it, but you suddenly feel a big flare of insecurity and your confidence feels really shaky. That is a normal thing and
that's something to solve. Internally rather than trying to get an external circumstance to solve for that insecurity. You know, wherever you go, you bring yourself with you. And so I wanted to share that with you because I know that's going to help some of you listening today.
Now, the main thing I wanted to talk with you today about is this concept that came up as I was coaching a few of my clients and It's it comes up especially as you move into your professional life and you gain more experience and you start to rise into higher levels of leadership. Like, that's where it really starts to show up. But the seeds of it are planted much much earlier.
And it's the idea of learning through mimicking by mimicking, what we see and trying to Do the same verses learning through creating by being internally creative and creating something because you're interested in in what is possible. And you have an idea for how it can go and learning through that way. Now, when we are young and by Young, I mean, like, when you're born, we're gonna go way back.
One of the first ways that we learn like the method for learning is by observing others and then trying to mimic what we see, this is how we learn to speak. Write like you're a little baby and there are adults saying things to you, trying to get you to mimic them, trying to get you to repeat back to them. Like that's how we And when you get a little bit older, you see people walking and you try to mimic that, you see it, and you try to repeat it and do it for
yourself. And so, very, very early on. We learn that being observant noticing how other people are doing things or how other people are being and then attempting to mimic that for ourselves is a way to learn and what becomes a little bit tricky. Is it requires that somebody outside of you is establishing a standard and then your job is to meet that standard and traditionally School kind of works like that too. Or even learning to play an instrument. Right?
Like someone, you know, gives you a standard gives you a scales gives you, you know, something to play and shows you what, you know, how to hold the instrument or how to I took piano. So I didn't have to hold the piano but someone showed me. No, here's where you rest your hands. And here's how you, you know, have your elbows and here's how you, you know, do your scales to practice the fingering in the movement.
And so someone else, establishes a standard and then your job is to learn how to do that, how to meet that standard, and then you are evaluated against your ability to replicate, or to accurately mimic. Fuck that behavior or that standard and as we grow up, what ends up happening is we compare ourselves to others. We look outside.
We see other people and assume that they are demonstrating the standard, like the standard and your job is to comply and to mimic that and to replicate that for yourself and then you You decide internally, whether you are doing a good job or not, whether you are on track or not, based on what you see other people doing. And we do this in careers,
right? Like comparing ourselves to our friends or our peers, and making decisions about how you feel about how you're doing based on what where you see other people. We also do this in our relationships. So if a lot of your friends are getting married and you are not, and you might think, oh my gosh, am I behind is something wrong with me? Am I off track? Because we tend to internalize this kind of standard or template of how things are supposed to be.
And we can be so hooked in to a sense of, you know, being rewarded or being on track or feeling like we're doing a good job based on that comparison. And one of the other ways, this shows up specifically in the workplace. Is that if you, you know, look around And you and especially if you're looking up, right? Like you're thinking about what will my life and career look, like a few years, down the road.
And you might look at, you know, we'll who seems to be very successful and success might be, you know, the salary they make success might be the kind of decisions. They get to make success might be the kind of projects, they get to work on. However, you define that you'll look around. You'll see. See, okay, if I stay here in this industry, or in this organization, what success is available to me?
And you'll kind of look around. And you'll assume that what you're seeing is what's available and that if you want to be successful, it will have to look like what you see around you. You'll assume that you will need
to mimic or replicate. What you see around you and I had a client very recently, who was grappling with this and she is at this high level in her organization and was having a career conversation with her boss and her boss said, hey, have you thought about going for partner and she thought about it and she kind of hesitated actually because she thought well, like I see people at the partner level and it doesn't look like they're doing any of the fun.
Work that I like to do. It seems like all they do is business development. They're not actually doing the design and running the projects. They're doing a lot more of this other kind of work that I'm not interested in. And they also seem really busy and not that happy. And she thought, like, if that's what it needs to be, you know, work at the partner level or Torque at the principal level, where I'd have to give up the work. I actually like doing and I would be even busier and it
would not be that much. Hon. I don't know that. I want that. And so what we've been working on is noticing. Oh, right. Like, this is you doing that mimicking, like seeing what's outside? Comparing yourself to that? And assuming that what you see is the only option rather than asking yourself. Well, if you are going to be partner, or if you are going to be principal, what would you want that to look like? What kind of partner would you want to be?
What kind of principal would you want to be? How would you want that to work? And considering the possibility that you could actually create that? Just because you don't see, it doesn't mean it's not possible. But as humans we tend to overlook this, right? Like, what we see tends to solidify as that's what's available and I have to choose from that. It can be trickier to feel like there is room to design and create. Your own version of that.
So if mimicking and learning by mimicking and learning by replication and learning, by comparing to an external standard, that someone else has established. Like if that's kind of where we start and it's helpful sometimes what other Alternatives do we have? And this is where I want to share the possibility of creating and learning through. Shannon rather than from
replication or mimicking. So, when we're learning by creating, what we do is we look to others as one example of how it can go not as the example or the standard and it's no longer your job to meet that. Now, looking at others, just becomes information that can be really interesting. Just noticing. Okay. So this is how I'm seeing it done or this is you know, how I'm noticing. Some people do it and then you ask yourself. What is it that I want? How is it that I would want to do this?
Like what are the pieces that I would want to have be a part of this? If I were going to do it in my style or in my voice? What would that be like? And the hardest part about that is our instinct when? You've gotten really good at mimicking, others. It's so hard to trust that your own ideas are as worthy and valuable and that they will work.
So that's that's the work that we do is to kind of unwind that story because when you start to get curious, like if trusting that your own ideas are also as valuable and as possible as what you see, modeled some Times that can be a hard. Leap can feel like a leap of faith. It can feel very risky and very scary. So where you start is you just start to get curious. You ask yourself. How would I want this to go?
What might be possible? What is, you know, the ultimate results that I want to create and what are all the different ways that I could create that? Even if it's something that I'm not seeing other people do and we just start with that Curiosity and then you begin To create it. So one of my clients wanted to create in her life, no meeting Fridays and it felt kind of risky because she didn't see anybody else in her organization doing that.
But we said okay, if you got to choose how your schedule worked like, what is the schedule that would be most supportive for the work that you do and for the way that you want to live, and she said, I want no meeting Fridays. I want time for Focus work. I want time for deep thinking. Gagging, I just want to have that time at the end of the week where I'm not in meetings all day. So what happens?
Somebody asks her if she can meet on a Friday, what she did was she responded to this person and she said, hey, I'm trying out. No meeting Fridays. Can we schedule for you know? Next Monday afternoon instead? And the person said, oh, yeah. Good for you. Of course we can it was no big deal. So she got curious, right? Like, how do I want my schedule to work? And she started to create it. Let's see if we can actually make this happen.
And so as you start to take these small steps and you start to build your trust in what is possible and you start to learn as you go, what really works for you. And this is so cool. Because what it means is, as you go instead of comparing yourself to what you see, other people doing and assuming that, what they're doing, is what you should be doing. Doing or that what they have is,
what you should have. What happens when you are doing this from creation, is that you check in with yourself you check
in with your results. And you ask is this creating what I want rather than comparing yourself to others and feeling like you're, you know, behind or off track according to somebody else because the other thing that happens, especially as we get older, Older in life is that if you are continuing to work primarily from mimicking and from replicating, what happens is you get really good at creating a life and a career
that you might not even want. Like you can feel the sense of reward of I did it. I'm on track but you never paused to ask is this even something that I truly want for myself? And as a human, you learn more and more about yourself every year of your life. And in your career, you absolutely learn more and more about yourself. I have a new neighbor and we met yesterday because he accidentally locked himself out
of his apartment. So, he rang my doorbell and like I had helped him kind of get sorted out, but he told me that he used to work in mining and he was, Are going to grad school to learn how to build tunnels and he said, yeah, I just got tired of living so far away from everybody and he wanted to do work. That was closer to people in closer to town and I thought. Yep. This is exactly what we do. We get interested in something.
We go down One path and you learn more about yourself as you go and you learn more about what you want. And it's not that you were wrong. Long before like, with my neighbor. It's not that it was wrong that he, you know, he didn't make a mistake in going into mining. Right? Like he said, a goal, he achieved it and along the way. He learned some new things about himself. I think this is true for all of us in our careers.
Yes. There are a few folks who know, at a very early age like this is what I'm going to do. And they have that Clarity. That was not me and that's not most of the people I know and work with. So I'm That might also be true for you. So when you are creating you release, the comparing yourself to others and you also release the story that you're behind and you decide what you want based on your vision by checking, in with yourself, as you go and by experimenting and trying things
along the way. And what's amazing is that it is so surprising what is actually possible, and what you can create. Because you're always learning more about yourself and the world and your industry. Or if you change careers, like there's so much that's available when we start to kind of soften our grip on the template that we
think we have to follow. When we realize that other people are showing us examples of what's possible, but it's not a complete set and so you don't have to comply or Or adhere to what you think you're supposed to do, or what you think, your career is supposed to look like, you can actually create something that is so tailor-made for you. That supports your goals professionally and financially and in your personal life and it might look different than how
you thought it would. And that's okay doesn't mean that you're behind doesn't mean that anything is gone wrong. It just means that you are leading the way. You are in Creative territory. You are charting A, New Path and you are inspiring and lighting a path for others. So that is what I wanted to share with you today. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening. I hope you have a great week and
I'll talk to you next time. If you know, it's time to level f. You feel your perfectionism Self Doubt and uncertainty getting in the way. Then come work with me. We'll have six months of one-on-one coaching and it all starts by going to my website, chemicalguys.com coaching and joining my waitlist. Talk to you soon.