EP.06 - Metaphors, Cars and Jobs
If your job was a car, what would it be? Would thinking of it as a car help you look at it in a different way? In this solo episode, Karen discusses using a metaphor to look at your jobs creatively. She uses the car metaphor to describe two past jobs, and gives questions to get you thinking about how to use this tool for yourself. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on my website.
Transcription
Transcription created with DeScript.
I’m Karen Styles and this is the Intentional Career Podcast. I talk to all kinds of people who take all kinds of paths to work they love. I'm a career and life coach and owner of Flow +Fire coaching. If you’re ready to create your intentional career with the support of a coach, schedule a call with me. There’s a link in the show notes or go to intentionalcareer.co and click the blue “Schedule a Call” button.
Hello, and welcome to episode six of the Intentional Career Podcast. This is another solo shorty episode, meaning it's an episode where I'm talking directly to you and not interviewing.
So today I wanted to talk to you about the idea of using a metaphor to understand something about yourself and in particular, the idea of thinking about your career or maybe your current or most recent job as a car.
Now, think of your current role, your current job. And if it were a car or some kind of vehicle, what would it be? And how would you describe it?
Is it fast? Is it slow? Is it something that is shiny and new and exciting and moves quickly? Is it something that is dependable, maybe it doesn't look impressive from the outside, but it works for you, it gets you to where you need to go? If it's a past job, was it something that suddenly broke down on the side of the road and you don't know what happened, right?
So this idea of thinking of it as a car just gives you a different way to think about your job. And using a metaphor like this, it can really help us tap into our own creativity and see things in a different way. In particular, if we're stuck in a situation, or if we are. You know, in a role where we're just thinking, "This sucks, this sucks, this isn't working, I don't know what to do." If that kind of message is on a loop in your brain, then maybe using this metaphor of a car could help you just think about it in a different way and describe it in a different way.
So I was thinking back on some of my previous roles and in particular the role when I was an executive recruiter, also known as a headhunter. And that was a job that felt... It felt very shiny and fancy, kind of like a brand new sports car. And I was actually recruited into that role. So I was headhunted into it. That's where I learned about what headhunting was by getting headhunted.
And I was meeting CEOs and executives and I was recruiting leaders of organizations and it was exciting and it was interesting. And I knew that the people who are going to be taking these roles were really going to be making a huge impact on the organizations that they were going to be part of.
It was downtown, in one of the fancier office buildings. And I was buying more suits at the time and I was wearing heels and I was very concerned about my image. And if I'm honest, there was definitely a bit of imposter syndrome in there at times going like, "Who am I to be doing this work to be recruiting like leaders of organizations?" and things like that. And it was also exciting and I learned a ton. But after a while it was like this shiny thing wasn't working for me. And if I go back to this metaphor of this shiny sports car, like it looked good from the outside and it was impressive. But inside, it was uncomfortable. And I wasn't sure where I was going. And you know, now that I think about it, perhaps, it was like, I wasn't totally in control of that car. Like it was shiny and impressive and other people were telling me that it was good. And I thought I should think it was the right thing for me, but I didn't feel like I knew where this thing was going.
And at that point I didn't exactly know what to do because I started looking around for other jobs and as a recruiter. You know, I was on LinkedIn all the time. I was looking at job postings all the time, looking at companies I thought were interesting. And I was looking around and I was like, [sigh] I don't want to do any of these jobs. When I thought about being a full cycle recruiter within the corporation. I was like, no, I don't want to do that. I didn't want to go to another search firm. You know, often that's the most obvious step, right? To take a similar job in another office. But I just was like, I don't, I don't think that's what I want.
So I started keeping my eyes peeled for something different and I didn't know what that was. But this takes me back to the metaphor again. So if you're in a car, let's say you want a new car. How are you going to go about getting that new car, right? It's not as simple as getting out of one and into another.
Now there might be some people who move quickly and just make it all happen in one day. And that's totally possible. I tend to be someone who moves a little bit slower. So, you know, if I were getting a new car, for example, I'd probably start looking around and seeing what people around me are driving and talking to my friends and see what they think. And I might do some searches on Google and I might go for a test drive. So there's all of these things I might do before I actually take the leap of getting a new car.
I was definitely keeping my eyes peeled. I was looking at postings and kind of losing hope in a way. Because there was nothing out there that was exciting for me. I did start talking to people who seem to do interesting work, people in my network. Sometimes, strangers that I reached out to who seemed to be working for interesting companies, doing interesting things, saying interesting things and just connecting and saying, "Hey, the work you do seems to be really interesting." And sometimes that led to interesting in-person conversations. And another thing I started doing during that time was I started volunteering at my local library.
I became a career coach volunteer. And I, you know what? I can't even remember why. I think it's interesting how sometimes these things happen. I don't remember my original reason for doing this, but for whatever reason, I applied to be a volunteer. I knew that as a recruiter, I could help job seekers and so I thought, why not do that? And I really, really enjoyed it. I enjoyed working with people who were job seekers, they needed a little help on their resume, they maybe needed a different perspective.
And I remember realizing that one of the biggest things that I did for people was to encourage them and help them remember what they were good at. And I say that sometimes about my clients, I'm here to help you remember who you are and put words to that. Because sometimes when people are in job search mode for a while, they can start to forget because all they see is, maybe the rejection or maybe the answers or lack of answers that they're getting from their applications. And that might lead to conversations about what strategies they're using. That's a little bit of an aside. But I realized I enjoyed working with people one-on-one and I enjoyed helping the job seeker versus helping the companies that were looking to hire.
So in a way, this volunteering was kind of like a test drive for me, right? It was a way to, to test drive a different kind of work. And then there came a point where the enjoyment of that volunteering really helped me see, I wanted to have that one-on-one impact with a person. I felt like the impact that I had was a little bit, I was a bit distant from the actual individual. And I wanted to work more closely with the people who needed help in that way. And ultimately that led me to apply for a position in a career center.
In that career center, I was doing some one-on-one work, but mostly facilitating small groups for job seekers who were learning English and doing lots of interview training. It's interesting cause if I go back to the metaphor, that job, which I stayed in for nearly five years, it was, I would say it's kind of like a Toyota Corolla that was a couple of years old. Like, maybe it's not shiny and impressive and people aren't necessarily wowed by it, but they know what it is and it makes sense. And for me, it was dependable. I could rely on it. It didn't stress me out. It didn't go too fast. That's for sure. It was just, it was something very dependable that I could count on.
So just as I'm thinking back through these roles, that brings up the idea that you might need a different role at a different time. Your needs might be different at different times. So, you know, I had the fun of that role that was like a sports car. And that it was shiny. It was fun to experience that, it really was. And then, I ended up in a Toyota Corolla and that was good for me as well. I got to experience more of this work of helping job seekers, helping people figure out their careers. And ultimately, also the stability of that gave me the chance to use my creativity and my mental energy to start my own business on the side while I was working there. And then to have the stability to eventually go out on my own.
But I wanted to give you a couple of questions to consider. So if we go into the metaphor of a car again, I want to invite you to consider these questions. If your current job was a car. What would it be? What kind of car would it be? What's the size of it? What's the age of it? Is it a particular colour?
It's really interesting to have these kinds of conversations and see what comes to mind because your creativity can just come up with things you never realized. Is this car comfortable for you? Is it just you or are there other people? What about the movement? Is it fast and agile? Is it slow and steady? Or maybe it's neither one of those things. What words would you describe how it moves? Are you the driver? Are you the one who's in the driver's seat?
And by the way, you don't have to be. You know, maybe you're in the type of role where somebody else is driving and that's comfortable for you. Maybe you get to choose the music or something like that. So think about what are the things that you get to choose. And how does that feel for you? And when you're thinking about this car, is there a destination, is there a landscape? Are you aware of what you can see outside of this vehicle?
And all that to say, there's no one way it should be, right? I want to make sure you know that it's not like it should be a Corolla or it should be a Tesla. Or whatever, it doesn't have to be one way, but. I think the question is, what is it like for you now? And are there adjustments that you might want to make? Right? And if it's feeling uncomfortable for you, what would those changes look like?
Because in 2021, you might have different needs for a car and for a career than one year ago or five years ago. And what you want now might be different than what you need two years from now. So it's worth checking in. Is this vehicle, this career that I'm in right now, or this job that I'm in right now, is it getting me where I want to go?
And if you're looking at potentially making a change, how might you go about checking out new cars, you know? Will you Google it? Is it important to just get out of your current one? That might be a possibility to be honest, right? You might feel like you're on a train that's careening down a track and you just need to jump off so you don't crash. That's okay too. But sometimes it's just helpful to consider what kind of metaphor you describe this as. Are there ways that you can test drive something new, right? For example, like volunteering or talking to people you trust or getting introduced to new people who are in roles that seem interesting to you. All of these types of things might give you information about what a new role might be for yourself.
You might also consult an expert, right? Or a coach.
So the main question is how might using the metaphor of a car help you see your career in a different way? Does it help you define something? That you weren't able to define before? Does it help you define what you have now versus what you might want? It might also help you define what is working for you. What you're happy about and what you're grateful for. And it might help you define, are there some things I need to tweak, right? Are there things you need to maintain? If you have a car, you have to maintain it, right? You have to put some gas in pretty regularly. You have to check the oil. You have to take it in for other maintenance and repairs. So you might be thinking about that. Is there career maintenance that you might need to do? Or that you might want to do, right? Or again, do you want to trade that in for something else? And if so, what might that something else look like?
So I've given you a lot of questions.
And, as a coach, that's a lot of what I do. Asking my clients the questions that help them figure out the answers that are right for them. Again, I'm not going to give you the one way to do it because there isn't one way.
But if you're thinking you might want to explore these types of questions, to come up with these kinds of answers, you can reach out to me. Set up a call, and let's talk about how I can help you define the vehicle that you're in, the vehicle that you want to be in and how I can support you in getting to that right thing for you.
There are links in the show notes. You can set up a call with me by going to my website and clicking the schedule, a call button.
Ultimately, how might using the metaphor of a car help you see your career in a different way?
And by the way, if you don't like the metaphor of a car, you can use something else too. Maybe you want to use an animal, or a city, or a weather system.
This metaphor is just a tool, a coaching tool that I sometimes use with clients. To help them think about challenges in a different way. Because sometimes when we can see it from a different perspective, we can see that there are different choices and options and possibly we can see solutions that we might not have seen before.
If you want to start asking yourself these questions, set up a call so we can help figure out how to get your career where you want it to go, heading in the direction that you want to go and defining the things that you want to define.
Thank you so much for sharing this time with me. I'll see you in two weeks.
Thank you so much for listening. It means so much that you spend part of your day with me. If you enjoyed this episode go to Apple Podcasts and leave a 5 star review. It helps other people find the podcast, and my hope is that if more people find the Intentional Career Podcast, then more people can create their Intentional Careers.
If you’re ready to create your intentional career with the support of a coach, schedule a call with me. There’s a link in the show notes or you can go to intentionalcareer.co and click the blue “Schedule a Call” button in the top right corner.
Episodes are released every 2nd Wednesday, so I’ll see you in 2 weeks for more of the Intentional Career Podcast.
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