Career chats: How to find a career you love

0:00(upbeat music) - So I really did on a piece of paper, had to write down like, what do I like to do in life and what do I want to enjoy? And so I just wrote down, I like, like sports, like the outdoors. How do I, how do I, so I had this like Chinese thing that I liked, you know, like the learning languages.

0:23I wanted to do something in business and then I, you know, wanted to work in like sports or the outdoors. And so I landed on this idea that I'd work in like sportswear and clothing. So I just literally wrote down a list of all the outdoor companies I knew, like Black Diamond and Burton, Patagonia, all these different companies.

0:49And I said like, how am I gonna, how am I gonna be able to work for one of these companies?

0:52- What comes to mind is this book called "Designing Your Life." It was, it's written by, I believe, the head of design, the design department at Stanford, if I'm not mistaken. And it was such a game changer for me. The whole premise is, before I read this book, I thought the way you do your career is you, you try to find the one thing that you, that will magically align with your interests and skills.

1:19And it's almost like finding the one in love. But when I read this book, what it, what it sort of recommends is that you play around with things. So take a job and then find out what you liked and what you didn't like about it.

1:36- So I was the morning news anchor at WDTV in West Virginia, but after a few years of working as a television anchor, I started to feel a little bit unfulfilled on both a personal and professional level. I just felt like my position behind the news desk did not really allow me to make a positive impact within my community.

1:59You know, absolutely, from an awareness perspective, talking about anything on the news can certainly bring value, but personally, I'm just a hands-on person and I really wanted to be a part of the solution to those stories of need and despair and tragedy that I was talking about every single day.

2:18- They, it's like four circles that overlap in sort of like a four part Venn diagram of understanding what are you good at, what do you enjoy doing, what will you get paid to do? And then in my case, what does the planet need? But it might be, what does your community need?

2:40What does your family need? You know, who is this, this other outside external stakeholder that you care about? What does society need, right? And putting those four together, then you find that little inner piece that the, you begin to understand, ah, this is my, this is what I want to do.

2:58This is my calling. - Be patient, you know, be curious, ask a bunch of questions, network a lot, maybe more than you think is necessary. Raise your hand, try new things. Try those things that scare you, the things you don't know how to do, you'll figure it out, you're smart.

3:16- So schedule that call or Zoom or in person meeting, have coffee with them and really learn about it. And, and at that, after that meeting, one of two things is gonna happen, right? Oh, this isn't exactly what I thought it was and I'm not interested. Or, oh gosh, what she said to me was really interesting and I do wanna learn more about this.

3:38And based upon that, you will end up giving your own self direction, right? So you'll give yourself, you'll gradually create a path for yourself of, oh, I do wanna learn more about finance. I do wanna find a finance job. I definitely want to work in finance. Or as a result of that conversation, you'll conclude the opposite.

4:00(upbeat music)