Career Warrior Podcast #269) Navigating Career Changes and Layoffs the RIGHT Way | David Fano

Episode Transcript

Chris Villanueva 0:04
Welcome to the Let’s Eat, Grandma Career Warrior Podcast.

And welcome to the Let’s Eat, Grandma Career Warrior Podcast where our goal is not only to help you land your dream job, but to help you live your best life. Today we’re going to talk about how to navigate the tough changes the right way. Yes, we’re going to be talking about complete career changes, layoffs and the types of transitions that often stress out job seekers, because we want to make sure you are equipped with the right tools and the right mentality to carry you forward. Today I brought on David Fano. David Fano is a serial entrepreneur, former WeWork executive and ex architect who has made it his mission to help people navigate their careers with confidence. His latest venture, teal helps people optimize their job search by providing the level of tooling and infrastructure that companies have. But for the individual professional. In just over a year, teal has grown to a community of over 65,000 users committed to advancing their careers. So as you can see, this is going to be awesome. David is just the person for this episode. And we’ll get deep here and dive into not only David’s story, but some of his best tips here when it comes to transition. So I can’t wait to get into it. Let’s launch right into Episode 269 of the career for your podcast. David, welcome to the show are so excited to have you.

David Fano 1:37
Hey, Chris, thanks so much for having me. I’m super pumped for this conversation. Awesome.

Chris Villanueva 1:41
So you had a really solid story you shared on your LinkedIn the other day that I think Prime’s is conversation Well, so you shared in 2019, that you were at the end of your maternity leave at WeWork. And as they were doing their first round of layoffs. So teal was not a company yet, but you had organized this thing. It was a career day with resume reviews and networking opportunities and things like that. So I would love to hear more about that story. And really, what were some of the things that jobseekers were feeling and going through at that time, I think would be a great way to open up.

David Fano 2:14
Yeah, it was a tricky time I was that we worked for a while and I was a big part of its growth. And hiring a lot of people, you know, my team went from 400 people to for like three 4000 people, I don’t remember the exact number, but it was a lot. And I was also responsible for a part of the business that took some of the deepest cuts. Because if the company was scaling back, its growth, which my team was growth, well, then they just weren’t gonna need a lot of these folks. And so I personally hired a lot of these people that were getting let go. And I just felt like an immense amount of responsibility to help these people bounce back. And you know, having a mold. I’ve seen some things and I’ve experienced some things. And you know, there’s some things we can do. Because this is the moment in your life where it’s kind of like shock. You’re just like, What should I do? And for anyone that was ready to jump into action, I was like, alright, well, let me give you some tactics. Yeah, a lot of part of my career has been sort of distilling and sort of curating tactics to help people jump into action. And I said, Let’s do it. And we put together a half day to half day, we ran the same event twice, because some people couldn’t come. So it was like we did like nine to noon. And then one to four, we got some incredible people to volunteer to come speak on some things on like how to gain Career Clarity and a moment like this, a bunch of recruiters volunteered to review resumes we did we created some content on how to best structure your resume things to look for how to job search. And it was awesome. There wasn’t like a career fair in the sense that there were employers there. But it was like, here’s three hours of condensed information on how to jump into action. And some things you can start doing right now.

Chris Villanueva 3:47
That’s fabulous. It sounds holistic, because it’s you know, it’s not all about the resume as a lot of job seekers that come to our service. They’re thinking it’s all about the resume, but you have to get that clarity, like, like you talked about and where you’re going next. And I think that’s hard for a lot of job seekers, especially as they’ve been laid off. Or even people have decided this is just not what I want to do anymore. So in a second, I’d like to go into perhaps some of those tactics and things that we can give jobseekers in order to help them to move on to the next thing, but let’s just forget about all the logistics and things like that. What are some of the emotional challenges we deal with when we’re being laid off?

David Fano 4:24
And it’s really complicated because our work, I’m not a big believer in work life balance, not a sense of that I have control and ownership of my time, but this idea that work in life are two discrete things. Okay. They’re not like my work is part of who I am. And I think where people struggle with that is like my work is not my identity. In my opinion, that’s up to you. That’s because you sort of abdicated your identity to your employer, but I am all those things are on my resume. Those were parts of my life. Just as the degrees from the school I got that That is etched in time, I was at these companies for a certain amount of my life. And that’s not going to go away. And I can control how I shaped that. And what I can’t control is how people think about those companies. And I think in a moment like that, especially a public layoff, it’s complicated because you go from, especially in our situation, I’ll talk about we work in particular, because I was affected by this, even though I wasn’t laid off. I mean, I can get into the details of that I wasn’t like explicitly laid off, my role was really diminished. And right away, which felt very complicated.

Chris Villanueva 5:31
Did you feel like you had to make your own pivot in a sort of way? Because the responsibilities were different?

David Fano 5:36
Absolutely. Yeah, my role change, and I had to wrestle with some of these things. But all of us were affected by this company that, you know, today’s, you know, a month before that was being seen as the most valuable company in WeWork. And all these, like, positive superlatives. So I had the most positive company, the most valuable company in New York, the second most private and most valuable privately held company, gun, you know, it was just like the darling of the discussion, to then kind of the, you know, the laughingstock in a weird way, right. It’s this company that couldn’t manage their money, which all those things were just great for headlines, but none of them are factually like to the letter true. Sure. But that’s it, the narrative was out, right. And so you have the situation from like, your friends, and like family, and not even knowing where you work, because it’s not one of like, the five brands, household brands that we know to be like, Oh, you work at that place that was in the news with that CEO that did that, that like all those funky headlines, right really starts to wear on your identity. Right? And this thing that was identity boosting now becomes like, identity damaging, and that’s hard to grapple with, like, oh, shoot, does that mean like, on my resume, now, people aren’t gonna hire me, because I worked at this company, all my friends are gonna, like think I have bad judgment, like the way the news is saying about the leadership of the company. And so you’ve got to wrestle with that. It’s like, now it’s embarrassing to tell people you work there. At least that’s how it feels in the moment, you know? And so those are all these psychological things that you’re going through, then there’s just like, if you haven’t been laid off yet, am I gonna get laid off? Are they going to do it all in one go? Is this going to be happening for weeks? Should I start job searching? Can I tell people should I start interviewing? Should I stick it out? I really believe in this mission, I think we can turn it around. It’s just a lot to really process and think about in a moment like that. And then some people get into like paralysis analysis, like, what should I do? Some people get hasty and want to take action right away. So it’s really difficult to decide what to do when you’re in a situation like that.

Chris Villanueva 7:31
Absolutely. And you’re bringing me back, I’ve helped clients who have worked for some of the banks that ended up crashing during the great recession. And a lot of them came with this anxiety and this fear, like I worked for such and such bank, it’s like, do I include this in my resume, like, I don’t know, if I want to be in this industry anymore. I don’t know if I can be in this industry anymore. So it’s just like anxiety layered on top of anxiety after that, which causes a lot of people concern. So I really respect everything that you’ve done for the job seeker community, especially coming from that that’s why I was just especially amped to get you to come on the show. Because I think you’re just Case in point, a great example of how to help people to move on and move forward. So thank you for that.

David Fano 8:16
It’s complicated, it’s really tricky, and people need a lot of help. So anyone out there trying to do this work, it’s just really valuable work

Chris Villanueva 8:23
valuable. So this week to produce a layoff playbook talking about what to do in case of a layoff. So what were some of the key messages that you think people would take away from this playbook, perhaps we could delve into a couple of them, but I’d love to just cover anything that people can do tactically, if they were to deal with a layoff, or some sort of quick change,

David Fano 8:42
I’ll break it into kind of three stages, sort of like before, where there’s a lot of uncertainty, and you don’t know if you’re going to be but sometimes these things are in the news, and you can bet, get nervous, that kind of right after, and then sort of once things have stabilized. So the before, like, I think we always need a little bit of a jolt for, like, career cleaning. And, you know, we all do it, you know, we make a folder on our desktop at work, we put some files in there. And before you know it, you’re doing things you’re kind of using the computer for personal use. You’re also you know, you haven’t really compiled any like successful project images or some key metrics or you know, stats or you haven’t downloaded your contacts like, and you just get caught off guard, if you are one of the people that gets laid off. So I would say take a beat, it’s uncomfortable to engage in the idea of like, I might get laid off. So that might be a reason to avoid it. But like, just ignore that, like regardless, proactive. Some like career TLC is a good thing. So you know, sit like while you’re there, and you’re fresh, and you still have access to your coworkers. Get some of those success metrics, get some of those achievements that you did document some of those project wins some data that’s not don’t take data from your employer, but like ask questions like, hey, what you know, what was our success on this campaign? You know how much revenue did we produce on that project that I worked on, so get some of those metrics that you can have with you, that might be a little harder to get if, and look, you should be doing that on a monthly basis anyway, but just use this as a reminder to do that. Now, a little more tactically, if you have personal information on the computer, take it off, there’s a world where you get laid off, and they take your computer, and that’s gone. And then it’s like a whole process with HR to get it right, you just filed your taxes, if you use your work computer for it, they’re on there, like, just clean that stuff off, don’t get in there, get in the habit of doing that. But take this as a moment to do that. Clean those things up. And then other things that are yours. You know, if you’ve made some good contacts along the way, you know, export those from your work, email, just people that you want to stay in touch with, it’s a little harder to get those, you know, go and connect with people on LinkedIn. So you have control of that relationship. And so those are things that I would do just regardless, right, no matter what, whether you think your companies get laid off or not, you should do that. And just take this as a moment as a reminder to do that. Now, the next thing is if you are unfortunately part of the layoff, there’s a bunch of stuff that are very tactical in the playbook that you can read around severance and 401 K, rollover and things and unemployment, but I would say more so is work gives us routine. And I think we really do benefit from routine, for sure, sometimes we present those routines, but once you get unemployed, routines gone, right, you don’t have these like external forcing functions, like I gotta get to work on time, I got to be on the Zoom. And now you are, you have complete control of your time in a weird way that you were just like not used to. And you have this kind of like Paradox of Choice. And so look for some routines, look for some things, look for some of these, like tethering aspects of your life, right. So maybe join a Slack community of peers or functionally, you know, if you’re part of a big layoff, maybe, you know, take the initiative and create that Slack community for you and your colleagues, we can help keep yourself accountable and be accountability buddies and things like that. Because you know, whether your company uses slack, Microsoft Teams, or who knows what, try to find some of these things that are familiar, you know, give you that sense of work and activity, that you’re in control of it. And it’s not that, you know, the company gave you that. And so I think those are things, look for some grounding, routines and activities that can help you feel like you’re back on track, because the vastness of things you could possibly do those next few days. Like, do I work my resume? Do I start applying to jobs, I start networking do I start like, so for some of these, I would call like tethering activities. That was

Chris Villanueva 12:24
an add on that, like, I felt the same thing. I mean, not even this isn’t even from a layoff experience. But having went to just start my own company, going from having that structure that I had, while working for a company and then going off on my own, I was like, I’m my own boss, I feel like I can do pretty much whatever I want. And I felt the ultimate freedom. Yet at the same time, not having that structure kind of messed me up in a way during the first I think a few months, and I was like the inconsistency, I think definitely was adding on to some of the stress. So I’d echo into what you were saying. And that it really helps you out a lot, just my morning routine, my wind down routine and things like that are to the things that really hold me together during the tough times

David Fano 13:06
100%. So find those for you for yourself. And then you know more tactically, once you’re ready to jump back into it, take the time to get prepared, I think another mistake that I see people make is they just jump into it to feel like they’re being productive, but I’m just gonna set it well, I’m just gonna apply to five jobs a day, and just go Go, go go go, and the goaling and things like that are good. But I would say be deliberate, be deliberate and be clear on what you want to achieve. Because what I see a lot of people do is they they’re just gonna make this down this resume, that’s just like, perfect thing. But the truth is, the resume is iterative. It’s not a thing, you make one time and you don’t go back and change it. But get clear set an intention, I want to do these kinds of roles at these kinds of companies, narrow down the possibilities, I think it’s very counterintuitive advice is like I’m gonna go present myself as the broadest possible to the widest range of companies, because that really opens the aperture that opens up anybody who could hire me. And that was all the end of the truth is actually, that has inverse effect, right? Because now you don’t have focus. And so take that I say, go slow to go fast, take a little bit of time to get clear and set an intention.

Chris Villanueva 14:12
Go slow to go fast. We have to repeat that a few times. For listeners, I think, but I want to pause and just riff on that for a little bit. Because I think whether or not you’re laid off, we have no I’m sure a lot of career changers listening to this podcast are people who are going to quit, stop and need to take inventory of where they want to go next. So regardless of the layoff or not, can you tell me? How do I figure out where I want to go next, which seems to be such a tough thing to grapple with? As a job seeker? Because as a job seeker, we can often say, I know what I don’t want, you know, I know I don’t want a job that you know ends up not treating me well or company culture that it’s you know, not diverse or et cetera, things like that. But we know what we’re running away from but how do we figure out what we’re running towards?

David Fano 14:59
Yeah, so First thing I tell people, when they embark on that is going to this process understanding that it’s not forever, right, like you will have another job, and you’ll probably have another career path, you’re gonna try other things, the world is just changing too fast, new occupations that excites you more than what you pick that don’t exist yet will present themselves. So take some pressure off this decision needing to be perfect. I think that’s a big blocker for people, the amount of pressure they put on this decision is you can iterate you did it this time, you can do it again. So first, get into a headspace of this is not etched in stone, it’s not a forever decision that I’m making. Once you get there, then you give yourself permission to get in a little bit more of a testing, iterative mindset. Start to think about the times in your life that you had complete and total agency and control of your time, and how you chose to use it. So examples are electives in school, weekend hobbies, the movies, you choose to watch the books, you choose to read the tutorials, you tend to, you know, the preside projects you take on these times that you have agency not because you had to do it because you wanted to do it where your actions you can learn from the actions you took, yeah, because I think we trick ourselves, right. Like the example I use is I was like, I want to learn how to code. I’ve been saying that for 20 years, and I still don’t know how to code. So you know what that’s like a perceived interest and a

Chris Villanueva 16:23
genuine interest. Right? It’s been this thing you’ve been running in your head? Yeah,

David Fano 16:28
I did the Conquer down. And then some action time doing that a couple of weeks ago, but like, you know, what was your genuine interest versus perceived interest? Then the next thing you need to do is decide, is this a way I want to make money? Or is this one of the ways that I give myself a release from thinking about ways to make money. And the distinction I think about as a professional passion and a personal passion? There’s a lot of debate out there on using the word passion. I agree with it, I think our passions kind of defined us. But let’s just use that as a proxy for activities that I really enjoy doing. Now, do I want those activities to have the pressure of needing to produce money? Or are those activities, a mental and psychological release from the reality of needing to make money, and the example I use is yoga, right? Because a lot of people use yoga as a hobby, they get incredibly passionate about it, they go on retreats all over the world for it. Some people then say, I want to become a yoga instructor, I want to teach yoga. Now that activity, there was a personal passion, has now become a professional passion. Right now it has the pressure of making money. Now it has the sense of obligation that it didn’t have before, right, I need to keep doing it. And that’s okay. Some people find those two things that have a Venn diagram that’s got 100% overlap, and that’s awesome. I would argue that they find other personal passions to start to infill and become that release, whatever that might be, we go and you might call those hobbies. And maybe once it’s a hobby, you know, so let’s not get hung up on the words, but identify those things that you are comfortable being the thing that is going to be responsible for making you money, then I want to hone in on those. So okay, cool. Now let me go start to look for those jobs. You know, and then you got to understand like, do you have those skills already? Do you need to go acquire those skills? What are the various ways you can do that they may be skills, or they do have skills that were applicable in a different context. You know, when I could I always plan my friends events, I loved it, I always do it whenever my friends are running an event. This is not the case for me. But more hypothetical, I’m always the first one to like volunteer to plan an event, oh, maybe I could event plan and I don’t have that on my resume. But I could do some things that help me structure that into a way that it’s like a skill and a hard skill. And I’m gonna go try to find some career path that enabled me to do that. Whether it’s events, marketing, being an event planner, being corporate events, that what are all the various ways that I can instantiate these skills that charge me up and get money,

Chris Villanueva 18:55
right. And so that makes sense. And I think one of the misconceptions on choosing where you want to go in your career is just this idea of passion. And there was even a, I don’t know if this is an article or a blog, or a book or something like that called, like, don’t follow your passions or how following your passions are one of the biggest mistakes you can make, I think this might have been Cal Newport, I think people just get it the wrong way. Because you have to at least care about where you’re going to some degree and wants to do it, because that’s where you’re going to be spending all of your time. And so, you know, if you’re listening this podcast right now, we’re not recommending we’re not saying okay, you know, I love playing basketball. So therefore, I need to go out and become an NBA player, because there’s a point zero, whatever chance of me making it. Or in my example, I love making music and me thinking that I’m going to quit my job right now and start making streaming money on Spotify, which I calculated it would take me 1.3 million streams per month, which I don’t think I could pull off but we’re not recommending that. And that’s the thing I think that we talked about last time, David was the fact that you can still be around that space and still in it, it doesn’t mean you have to be physically performing the thing that you need love right now that you think directly translates over. So would you agree with that? Does that Is that making sense?

David Fano 20:12
Yeah. And the way I think about it is like task and domain, right? Because you do a task and you do it in the domain, those two things can be highly connected, right. So the domain is music, the task is playing guitar, right. But you could also in your case, like, make it a point to, you know, specialize in helping musicians transition into tech, right, in your exact case of like, being a resume writer as like, I love this because I understand that passion. And I like I’m not in it right now. But I get to be in that domain, I have, I bring a unique lens, because I care about this topic. And I can connect with these people in a different way that someone that doesn’t have this passion for this domain of music, and so figure out a way to thread that needle to incorporate the right amount of that, but then preserve the parts that you don’t want to have that pressure of making money when you don’t want that pressure of having to produce so much music and these hits.

Chris Villanueva 21:05
You know, right, right, right. That’d be too much for me. So that other thing we talked about last time was personality assessments. I’d love to get your take on that. If you think they’re worth it. What are some? What are some of the things about personality assessments? I guess I should be looking for to help me out.

David Fano 21:20
Yeah. So I think also, like in this moment of like, getting clear of what I want to do is really being clear on who you are, and in what environments and in what situations you get charged up and you get drained. Because our work absolutely is going to put us in those environments. You know, as simple attributes. I think we can all self identify fairly well, not everyone but as I my introverted or extroverted. Some people refuse like, I’m both Okay, fine. You do you, you know, I think it’s at the very least 51% 49%. But I tell people that’s like, look, just decide fine, you think they’re pretty equal, which ones 51%, which ones 49. And focus on that self awareness. And those situations in which you are energized, like disproportionally energized, energized relations in which you’re disproportionately drained. Right? And so, that doesn’t mean don’t do those things. But be prepared to equip yourself with tools to counteract, right? Because, you know, there are folks like Marcus Buckingham that say, play to your strengths, figure out what your strengths are, figure out what those natural things are the charge up and do those, because you are advantaged over the person who doesn’t enjoy doing and is naturally drained. That doesn’t mean you have to do that. That’s just the belief. I tend to agree with him. But look, if you’re the most introverted person on the planet, but for some reason, you are totally enthralled by outbound sales calling. All right, well, let’s figure it out. Right, you you end up drained and super exhausted by the end of the day, okay, incorporate 10 minute meditations every two hours or something like figure out the tools for you. I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do. And if you want to figure out a way, but just be aware that certain activities going to be fairly connected to the role yet always are going to have an effect on me.

Chris Villanueva 23:07
Right? It’s about not putting yourself in a box and not being able to stay just having to stay inside that box things so limiting for people. So thank you for saying that. I think that’s good. So I have to ask, because one time I was presented with a resume getting on the topic of layoffs, one time I was presented with a resume that ended up showing every single position that this individual was laid off from, I told her that was a little bit too much. I said that, you know, we don’t need to call too much attention to something like that. But when I think about how job seekers should be presenting themselves, whether they’re going through a layoff or just a career change completely, how should we present ourselves in the resume or perhaps even the interview?

David Fano 23:49
A lot of people want like, a checklist of things they want? Yes, no answers to these things, right? It’s like do this. And so the way I like to address these is let’s take it to intention, right? Like my goal is to get hired, let’s be realistic about how we’re going to do that. And let’s be realistic about that situation. At the end of the day, a job search is a sales process. I am the service provider, and the employer is the customer, I am selling services, I want to be paid for these things that I do. And it is your job to make that person confident in your ability to deliver on what they’re seeking. So what I mean by that is put everything on the paper that betters your chances included in that is things that you’re confident about. So you know if it makes you anxious and uncomfortable that you feel like you’re kind of lying or obfuscating part of your past Well, that’s not great because that’s gonna come through in the resume. Right? But know that on the other side of that resume is a person who is looking for all the reasons not to hire you. Right, like, not in a negative way. But that’s the concern, right? Ultimately, I think what people forget, and this is part of what makes it so personal is that it’s not about you when you get rejected Did it’s not about you look, there is bias in hiring, there’s all these other things so and so I don’t want to trivialize those. But ultimately in like a very logical way what those things are informing incorrect or not, is the impact of that decision on that person’s career, right. So I am going to I am the hiring manager, I am the recruiter, my success is based on the team that I build and my activity and how the company is better as a result of it. I believe that hiring you is not going to help the company succeed, I’m not going to hire you. So it’s a very personal decision in that sense of like, for me, and how I think it affects my career, like hiring you affects that person’s career. It affects that hiring managers career, it affects that recruiters career because if you don’t work out, and that recruiter has a few hires in a row where the people don’t work out, and they get let go when I’m gonna lose my job, because I don’t hire well. Now, they were probably poorly managed, who knows what, right? But it’s really around risk prevention. And so the thought process you need to bring in is, what is this document that I’m gonna put in front of this person that has them believe that by hiring me, they will succeed? They are gonna go, if I’m a recruiter, I’m gonna go take this resume to a hiring managers say, look, Chris is great. And they’re not going to ask me some question of like, what’s all this stuff? Because they’re gonna assume I vetted all that. So all that’s to say is like, what are you going to put on the paper that makes it easy for that person to advocate for you? So I don’t think that leads like being disingenuous, unfortunately, people are there is judgment, people are going to make assumptions on what’s on the paper. So yeah, if you’ve shown that you’ve only been at jobs for three months, you know, five or six in a row, like the logical thing that the person was able to that person’s probably not gonna last year. And it might have been a lot of circumstances that resulted in that. So the control your narrative is what I would tell people like control your narrative and have opinions think about how someone would sell your resume to someone else. Yeah, because oftentimes, hiring is not a single person activity, it’s actually multiple people. So envision, like teaching someone how to pitch you and how this document helps them.

Chris Villanueva 27:10
That’s the great golden rule that I think if I could instill that within every job seeker would be that it’s like, think, from the perspective of the person who’s looking at your resume, or actually interviewing you, because they need to look good for their company or their company needs to produce results, whatever it is. So you do take a lot of the pressure off by saying that, I think because, you know, there’s all of these rules of thumb that we give in the career space, like, Oh, your resume has to be exactly one page, or it has to be no longer than, you know, things like that. I think if we all follow that golden rule, then all of these answers were just, they would naturally answer themselves. So think that’s great.

David Fano 27:47
That’s fantastic. Use your judgment. Everyone wants us like checklist. It’s like, what do you use your judgment? Right? It’s not about it’d be one page or two pages, like what I tell people is like, look, I promise you if you don’t catch their attention on the first page, how many pages you have is irrelevant, because people read page one first. So

Chris Villanueva 28:07
just like when you’re Googling something, the first page matters the most.

David Fano 28:10
Yeah, exactly. And it’s like, just be don’t like, look back to yourself. What do you do when you go to buy something? You do research? When you’re hiring, you do reviews? Why would it be any different when someone else is trying to do that? So just think about it, like, take the emotion out? The first thing they’re gonna look at as the top third of the page? Look, if you think a professional summary helps you stand out in the top third, awesome, if you think it’s a bunch of bulleted words with skills, awesome, what gets them to read the next two thirds of the page? And then after that, what’s going to get them to turn the page? And so just think about that? How am I going to get this person hooked? And what am I doing to get them to believe like, if I have to read 10 pages? Well, if I made it all the way to page 10, and the resume has been amazing, because like, why would I keep going? You know, the truth is, you probably would have lost me by page two, because you’re just filling it with a bunch of unnecessary stuff.

Chris Villanueva 28:58
David, you’ve been a fantastic guest. I can’t thank you enough for coming here on the podcast. Seriously, thank you. I just gotta get your final closing thoughts for career warriors here? What is a message that if you can tattoo on every single arm of our career warriors, what message would that be,

David Fano 29:15
you know, it would be focused on the intentions, not the outcomes. And right a lot of us set goals, like an empirical goal, or I want to make this amount of money. I want to have this job title by this date. And I see a lot of people achieve those things and they’re still unhappy. And so focus on the intentions figure out ways to talk about like, where you intend to be from, you know, I want to be able to go on a vacation with my family, fly first class, like whatever put whatever attributes you want on it as like an experiential intention, and then work backwards from like, what are the things that your career needs to beat to do to help you deliver on that what happens with focusing on the hard goals and then you focus on the tactic you stay in, like the solution space, not the problem space? And so it’s like, look, I could lower my cost of living I could make more money, I could side hustle, I could do different things, it gives you control of how to approach it with multiple solutions. So that’s kind of what I told him, I was like, don’t get too hung up on the title, don’t get too hung up on the amount of money, focus on the intention, they’re going to be part of the equation that don’t make it to primary,

Chris Villanueva 30:19
you’re talking to the right person, because for my whole life, I’ve spent way too much on the outcomes. And it’s, during those times, it really has eaten at me. And it’s caused me excess stress that I didn’t need versus if I focused on the problem. And just really, the process, I think, really would have helped me example of that, just like all my life, I’m like, Oh, I’m gonna bench this amount of weight, I’m gonna squat this amount of weight, I’m gonna be like this amount of pounds, cut this amount of fat. And I focused so much on that, versus I just needed to look at eating healthy and doing the right things for my body, things like that. So career warriors know that I love the gym analogies here. But I love that closing message. And I think it’s something that a lot of us needed to hear. So thank you.

David Fano 30:59
Awesome. Thanks for having me, Chris. I feel super grateful to be able to share these ideas with your listeners.

Chris Villanueva 31:04
Perfect. You take care of David, thanks so much for coming on the show. And I can’t wait to be in touch. Alright. Thanks, Chris. listeners. This wraps up episode 269 of the Career Warrior Podcast, we got deep into it. We talked about things such as changes, pivots, layoffs, the hard hitting stuff, and a message I want all of you to take away from is that it’s okay. It is going to be okay. And just having the right strategy and going slow to go fast. As we said earlier, not rushing into things is going to be something that’s really important for you. So be patient with yourself. You don’t have to make the perfect transition tomorrow. And you’re going to be alright. If you want to look at the resources that we mentioned during today’s episode. You can check that out in the description of this podcast, whether you’re listening on Spotify, or Apple or whatever platform and of course, I will be in touch with you and we’ll have our next episode released in two weeks from now, warriors. Thank you so much for tuning in today’s episode, I can’t wait to see you next time to like a rear warrior podcast. And before you go remember, if you’re not seeing the results you want in your job search our highly trained team of professional resume writers here at Let’s Eat, Grandma can help head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast to get a free resume critique and $70 off any one of our resume writing packages. We talk all the time on the show about the importance of being targeted in your job search and with our unique writing process and focus on individual attention. You’ll get a resume cover letter and LinkedIn profile that are highly customized and tailored to your goals to help you get hired faster. Again, head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast. Thanks and I’ll see you next time

Transcribed by https://otter.ai