Pete Schramm - Author of Pathfinders - Career Club Live

[00:00:00] I know you're gonna find a key planet Hey everybody, this is Bob Goodwin, president of Career Club and welcome to another episode of Career Club Live. Thank you so much for taking a few minutes to join us.

[00:00:21] Very excited about today's guest, which we'll get to in just a moment. But as we kick off the new year, want to make sure that you check out all the free resources that are available for job seekers at career.club.

[00:00:33] If you're an HR professional, please make sure you check out our four employers section where we've got a bunch of other cool resources for you guys as well. If you are watching this on YouTube, please subscribe, click the bell, comment, you know

[00:00:44] what to do, same for whichever podcast platform you happen to be catching this one. When you write new review, it really does help their algorithms and make sure that the program gets maximum visibility. So with that, we'd like to tell you just a little bit about today's guest.

[00:01:01] So we're going to be speaking with Pete Schram, Pete is the author of a new book called Pathfinders. And the book is a comprehensive guide for professionals and aspiring leaders to navigate their career paths with greater clarity and strategy. And go off script here for a second.

[00:01:17] But when Pete and I first got acquainted and he was starting to kind of talk through the book with me, like we were finishing each other's sentences. So I'm really excited about the book excited half, Pete on.

[00:01:28] But beyond being an author, Pete is also an entrepreneur, TEDx speaker and founder of Latitude, a platform promoting an employee connection survey in retention. His background's in engineering, global operations, in mentorship. And combined with this experience as a speaker and influencer, this is what she'll be going

[00:01:46] into informing his new book Pathfinders. So if that, Pete Schram, welcome. Thanks Bob, great to see you. Hello everybody else, great to meet you. Learn about you and I'm excited to dive in today.

[00:01:59] But you probably knew what I was already going to say because we're finishing each other's sentences. I think that is true. So as we are want to do, Pete just like to help listeners get to know you just a little bit better.

[00:02:11] So where do we find you today? Where do you call on him from? Calling in from rural Western Pennsylvania. I grew up in Butler, PA. It's a little bit north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

[00:02:23] So a couple hours away from, you know, many of the big cities on the East Coast. Yeah, no, that's cool. And then where do you go to school, Pete? What you're going to tell? No, I did not go to Pitt. I was born and raised, blue and white.

[00:02:36] So Penn State. But I went to school in Washington, DC at Catholic University. Oh, very good. And then just a little bit about your family. Mom, dad, brother, myself and growing up on a farm, we had lots of animals and other things running around our property. That's funny.

[00:02:58] And then it's always helpful because you've got such an eclectic background. Do you mind maybe kind of given the one to two minute version of your career? Yeah, well, I'm pretty tall. I think that's an interesting thing for people to learn about. I'll tell you. I'm five foot 20.

[00:03:14] So let's see if the listeners do them out. Okay, give you a chance. Six foot eight. Whenever you chant, chant like that over. So we're like, do you like being tall? Like, yeah, it's pretty awesome. Except for cars and clothes and airplanes and stadium seating.

[00:03:29] Those kinds of things aren't overly fantastic, but I'm blessed and unfortunate. So grew up Western PA on a farm. I learned this thing like work ethic and take care of others. Oh my, okay, how in the world do I do that?

[00:03:41] I don't necessarily want to stay on the farm my whole life. So I'm going to Catholic grade school, public high school, private high school and then college in Washington, DC. So I'm like, whoa, here we go. Big city.

[00:03:52] I studied engineering, mechanical because I'm like, I don't know what I want to do whenever I grow up. I was fortunate to play basketball and track in college. And then upon graduation went to work at Lockheed Martin. Huge company.

[00:04:04] And I asked my boss and like, hey, how do I become the best employee you ever had? And whenever we get into the book, you'll see on page one, we talk about that and his response, which was, go find yourself a mentor.

[00:04:16] And I'm like, great, where do I get me one of those? And so as the next few years transpired, that's where I learned, okay, I'm in a supply chain role who can I learn from here? I'm in a corporate strategy role working on sustainability, business cases, super fun

[00:04:33] who can I learn from and grow with here. Supervisor down in Florida, right? Union non-union people are two times three times my age. And I'm like, okay, how do I keep growing, developing and progressing myself? But those around me went to Eastern Pennsylvania near Screm.

[00:04:49] And it's a non union shop as a supplier quality engineer down to Baltimore building 30 foot tall, middle one as a quality engineer. And then in DC's, probably living in DC working in DC, working on a multi-dillion dollar ship project as a program manager.

[00:05:05] I'm like, wow, this was awesome. And people were calling me up, you know, one or two or three phone calls a day. How did you get to where you are? What's it like? You connect me to this kind of person, like, yeah, sure.

[00:05:16] But then I didn't have time to help everybody and I didn't have all the answers. So I'm like, I guess I should start a company. We've got a start a company and that's where the studio entrepreneur journey came from.

[00:05:29] We're doing a smaller defense contractor built standoff, threat detection systems, like robots for the army can take you for good guys safe. And then got into building, what is now latitude to play engagement software, mentorship

[00:05:44] software and since then I need to update this in the bio on the middle of 23 joined the board of statra, which is kind of like the, you need this before you can fully benefit from latitude to tracking the ROI on your investments.

[00:05:59] But people passionate people person Pete from Pittsburgh. There you go. Well, I get there's something else we have in common, which is a little race and I speak a little race too. So we can do that. So you kind of already, oh, time out.

[00:06:15] What does Pete do when Pete's not doing latitude, writing books and other cool stuff? If you were to ask me a couple of months ago and say nothing, right, that whole like work life balance, I was like, man, bottom of the list failing.

[00:06:28] But over the last few months I stepped back and said, hey, I got to walk the walk and talk to talk. I love being around the game of basketball and at the age of 31 it become very accident prone.

[00:06:40] So now I'm transitioning into coaching basketball, not done playing but I'm pausing playing. Love to be on Peloton. So if anybody's tram farm, you know, let's ride on Peloton, love traveling. My brother and I are trying to take an international trip each year.

[00:06:55] I'm working to build a waterfall near. Of course you're on everybody's work in a building wall. Yeah. And rebuilding a log cabin from 1786. So stay tuned as we keep progressing. I'll give you some photos.

[00:07:11] But also meeting new people is one of my favorite things to do because people I meet, the more people I can connect and the more people I can help. That's one of the things that I learn going up on the farm, right? Better I'm alive some others.

[00:07:21] I'm like, well, if I can meet more people then that's easier to connect them and that no, you know, doing what I'm supposed to be doing here. You know, well, definitely be talking networking. I know that's going to come up.

[00:07:31] So you kind of already telegraphed a little bit of how the book started based on page one and I need to find me a mentor. What sort of the overall thesis of the book in the maybe we can start to break it down into those general pillars?

[00:07:48] So Bob, I'm a trained engineer but I'm kind of a broken engineer because I like people and I like to communicate with others. But what I did for it was covering engineer the code. We're covering, there we go.

[00:07:59] But to make it super simple and I like the format of here's what I'm going to tell you then I tell to told you that I'm going to remind you that I'm going to break it down and tell you what I told you.

[00:08:08] And then I'm going to at the end wrap it up by telling you which I already told you a couple of different times. So whenever we look at the cover of the book, you see pathfinders at the top, navigating your career map with a personal board of advisors.

[00:08:20] Okay, career map is in bold board of advisors is in bold two concepts. That's what we focus on right? Who are the different kinds of people that can guide you multiple mentors and then how do

[00:08:31] you sort of visualize where you've been, where you are, where you want to go and break it down make it super simple. Career map personal board of advisors. God. Okay. So let's start because I think, well, you tell me, does it start with getting a personal

[00:08:47] board of advisors first to help our, you know, kind of architect the career map or it's at the other way around? Yeah. So the way I go through it is you know about your background.

[00:08:57] So that's something that you can put together and you might have some ideas of what you want to go through and do in the future. When you get the book, there's a QR code on the back. If you scan it, takes you to some different interactive workshops.

[00:09:11] This is the Ikey guy we've talked about that before. So there's a little bit of work to do as an individual to figure out, hey, what do I want? Where do I want to go? What are some of my interests?

[00:09:21] So you do rev one of the career map before you start interacting and formally building your personal board. So some career maps. So then whenever I say hey Bob mentor, right? Functional mentor. You know, board seat one of eight. Excited to chat.

[00:09:36] Here's a first draft of my career map. That makes your life nearly infinitely easier to say like, aha, I see something and I can build off of these concepts and give some feedback instead of just starting from scratch.

[00:09:52] So then you continue to build up the board and you continue to iterate on the career map. But that's kind of my approach. Okay, so spell the Japanese word that you used for the career map.

[00:10:05] So well, no, no, career map is one thing, but it's a pre career mapping exercise. That's where I'm going to go. I.K.I. G.A.I. And I'll put it up on the screen. Here's my panel of the concept for the past year to then diagram. Yep.

[00:10:21] What am I good at? What do I care about? What do I find passion in? Yep, one, two, three, four. I love doing this. The world needs this. I could be paid for this and I'm good at this. Right? So there's a lot of different takes on it.

[00:10:34] But it's really just kind of figuring out those different pieces. And that's whenever you kind of get into the piece of, here's my why. Here's my purpose. Because I keep interesting through my career and I keep in true to these true doors

[00:10:47] or these pillars or these things that I really need for me. Yep, so as we coach people in career club, and this is now a team up finishing each other sentences in a iteration. One is helping people define their personal brand.

[00:11:03] Like in for me, it's sort of Jim Collins hedgehog concept of, you know, what am I good at at? What am I care about? What can I be the best in the world at or where drives my economic engine? Right. And so you put those together.

[00:11:17] That's a good thing to start to define your convictions, your values, as you said. Convictions lead to clarity which starting to the fog to lift and have an idea of which direction, what's the map starting to look like?

[00:11:33] What's I've got a notion of what the map looks like and where I want to go would say yes to, it's a no-to. Huge huge. Then you're not got confidence and confidence is contagious. When I believe, it makes you believe. Right?

[00:11:49] And so when we've got, it's all rooted in convictions, whether it's Ikki guy or you know, the hedgehog concept or whatever. But it's that pre-work, the kind of like only you can do to know what's true for you not that that's not even totally true.

[00:12:06] Sometimes people can guide you and you can get feedback like when you've seen me at my best, what was I doing? Yeah. What was your observation? Well Bob, you're really good at this, you're really good at that. I've kind of seen you struggle with this a little bit.

[00:12:19] All right. Well that's helpful feedback for me to figure out some of those different components of getting to my why. And I also like to, so great point but I also like to ask people from various chapters and various functions in your life.

[00:12:35] So as you go through, I know it's in my head more than you know what's in my head, right? I'm not super good at reading minds yet but you know, we'll work on it.

[00:12:44] So to say hey, here's, I put draft one of the Ikki guy or hedgehog together. And then I can say okay, here's that's what's going on. And then I ask some people from my childhood, I ask some people from my academic journey.

[00:12:57] I ask some people from my early career profession. I ask some people from other parts of my life because whether we know it or not, sometimes we act a little bit different in various environments.

[00:13:10] And so that's when we get to see like hey, this is the real me but that Ikki guy, it stays consistent, right? The stuff that I really love doesn't necessarily change what where I am or what time of day it is, right?

[00:13:23] The value I add to the world, sure I can get paid for it. But like my core who I am is going to be pretty consistent almost 24, 7. That's true and what I love about getting these outside perspectives and I'd like

[00:13:38] to get your notion on using assessments as well. But you know, sometimes though we're too close to things, right? And it's actually kind of hard to see where I fit in, it gives context as you're saying.

[00:13:54] And so when you have somebody speak into you as they've seen you as you say different phases of your life or a different context, it's like, oh, I never really thought of it that

[00:14:05] way but now that you tell me Pete that you saw this to me, I guess that is true. I never put words to that before. And so the emotional intelligence for me, sometimes you know, not being a self aware as

[00:14:20] we could be and even to the extent we are sometimes we lack the vocabulary, right? Other people can help fill in those blanks for us. And again, that's what I love about what you're doing is most people tend to not be self reflective enough.

[00:14:36] And then we just sort of wander through our careers, kind of what I call a pinball strategy. You should react to the last thing that hit you. So we can also think of it as we're on a journey, right?

[00:14:49] So pathfinder's, and you kind of see the map that's on here, right? I liken this to a nautical journey, right? We're sailing on the sea and what happens if you don't have a clear heading?

[00:15:03] If you let those waves push you this way in that way and you're not focused. And a lot of people, you know, when they're getting started, they don't know where they want to go.

[00:15:13] And if you can't figure that out, then it's pretty darn difficult to figure out how to get there, right? Because that's the first piece of figure out where do I want to go? And then you can have a couple of options, right?

[00:15:23] But then you can help refine and define this path to get to that point. You see there's a couple of different icons, those tools. But you know, if you just kind of are out there sailing, which sometimes it's okay to do. Right? You're an explorer, you're an inventor.

[00:15:39] That's perfectly fine. But then we want to make sure that we're not what the other saying, right? Is the tailwagon, the dog, right? At least we want to be in control. And now we have a framework to own and influence and positively drive our professional development journey.

[00:16:00] So I, you know, me got the conversation here because I know we need to get to personal advisors. But you know, what's your take on when do people actually realize they need what you've architected? Is it enlightenment?

[00:16:21] Like, you know what, I've just been thinking about it and I'm not satisfied. Maybe coming out of the pandemic, you know, I've just been thinking more about what I really wanted my life and in my career. Was it oh, shit.

[00:16:32] I just got laid off and somebody pressed the pause button for me. And I got to figure out what it's all about and what I actually want to do with my life. So I'll tell you a couple of stories from just the last couple of days. Okay?

[00:16:48] So I was getting coffee with one of my friends yesterday and he said, hey, Pete, I'm mid-career. And I'm trying to figure out what's the next step for me, right? Extremely successful professional.

[00:17:00] And he already had a copy of the book and I'm like, well, this is so cool. Like, people are, you know, doing this. And he's like, I needed this 10 years ago. I wish I proactively had this. So I had those different people at this pivotal transition point.

[00:17:18] So he's like, I'm, I'm building up my board right now, mid-career professional. And then I was like, hey, let's take a picture together and Bob, you'll love this. I borrowed a dog from somebody inside the coffee shop. Hey, what do you mind taking off the water?

[00:17:31] Yeah, why not? Right? I'll send you the photo. And then they said, hey, what book is this? And my buddy is like, oh, this is Pete, he just published this book. At the time of this, it was weeks old. It wasn't even a month old, right?

[00:17:44] So essentially hot off the press. And they're like, hey, I'm, you know, going into the last year of my college career. I'm trying to figure out what I can do with my life who can guide me. And I was like, is this, is there another camera somewhere?

[00:17:57] I was like, that's literally what this is. I just gave up three books between I walked in and coming over to this meeting. But I don't have any more books on me. Here's a bookmark. So anybody that's like thinking about a book, right? Really good idea.

[00:18:11] Jody came up with this one. So bookmark right here as a fantastic way to market, get the word out there. And so she was finishing up getting ready to graduate from her academic experience. So that's a great place, right? Hit the ground running.

[00:18:27] And then her sister was sitting across the table. She's like, hey, I'm getting ready to start my first job. What about me? Like, I don't really know what to do over here. And I said, well, have you thought about where you want to go?

[00:18:38] And whenever you have those check-ins with your, you know, stay interviews, your one-on-ones with your manager, the other people that are in your circle, how are you going to be able to sort of visualize what it is that you want to do?

[00:18:52] And they can then help and say, hey, here's where you can progress. Because Bob, you and I both know listeners know this. One of the biggest reasons that people leave organizations is no little to no map to professional growth. So, okay.

[00:19:07] So we've got kind of this kind of the DNA of the beginnings of my career map, right? We've got, and I like what you said to that you've got something for people to react to, right?

[00:19:20] And as a former market research geek, we've talked about Aden and Unated Awareness. And but when you can show somebody something to stimulate their thinking and give them some attachment points, like their mind starts to really click because you've given them something to work with.

[00:19:40] I don't know what I want to do, you know, I'm just thinking about La La, and it's like just goes into the jump drawer of their mind. They don't know what to do with you, so they don't do anything.

[00:19:50] But when you give them some stimulus, it's like, oh, okay, now I can start to track with you. So I love the fact that you're giving people a visual words. So what happens next? So we've done the Iki guy, what happens next?

[00:20:05] So that's where I kind of learned about myself, right? Simon's in X start with YPs, so we're trying to align with some of those concepts. And then we start to build up our board, right?

[00:20:16] I like to think about who are those people that are in your world today that might be pretty similar in experience. This could be the first board seat. I recommend is your buddy, right? The least formal role. Some organizations have a buddy program on boarding program, right?

[00:20:34] But this is the person that you're in the trenches together, and you're going to ask some of those more tactical questions. Right? You're going to want to build up your career map, their career map, just that first draft. It's kind of the, hey, I'm not alone.

[00:20:50] Let's figure this thing out, and it's kind of like peer-to-peer mentorship. Yup. At that regard. And then we get into kind of board seats two and three are kind of your boss, right? If you have one, which majority of people have one, but entrepreneurship is becoming

[00:21:07] more and more enticing, right? And popular. So that's where functional mentor, right? So it's kind of like one, two, three, and, you know, grab at least two of those three, obviously three or three as ideal. But grab those folks functional mentor, right? I alluded to this concept earlier.

[00:21:24] Bob, this is somebody that's been in my shoes before five to ten years ahead of me and experience. They may have even had my existing manager at some point and they kind of say, hey, here, do this. Don't do that, right?

[00:21:37] You're aligned with them professionally, you know, mentally, maybe even spiritually. And I go through a checklist of, you know, it's like 14 or 15 different questions to ask when you're in the prospecting phase with your personal boards, kind of like dating, right?

[00:21:53] These are my non-negotiables, these are my things that I'm kind of like, if the on, these are the things that, you know, take it or leave it, these are the dealbreakers. Right? So it's important that we don't settle, right, in many different aspects.

[00:22:04] So there's a kind of like one, two, three that we'd go through. Now, it sounds like it don't let me put words to your mouth, but since like you're, you kind of build a portfolio of different people sort of different roles on the board, right?

[00:22:20] And we did a webinar the other week on resilience and one of the concepts was having a tribe. And different people in the tribe serve different functions. So like if I just need to be like super emotional about something, there's some people

[00:22:40] I can go to and other people I wouldn't go to for that doesn't mean that they're not a very valuable member of my tribe. It's just not their role in the tribe. Can you build on the concept a little bit? 100% enough. I'm opening up the book here.

[00:22:55] So this is the way that we sort of visualize some of the concepts in here, right? So we go from one through eight and then we have the different icons that we talk to.

[00:23:05] So that you figure out hey, who do you need at different stages and then other big pictures guy, right? Think picture, big pictures guy. But then we have different roles. I agree. Oh, you know, hey, early career, what do I mean?

[00:23:18] The circle size represents who do I spend more time with each of those board seats, early mid, late career? So 100% up with you and you think isn't a tribe, is it a friendship bench? Is it a circle of peers, right?

[00:23:34] There's a lot of different ways that we can look at it but it really just comes to hey, who do I need for these certain things. And it's almost like a racie chart if you've put something like that together, whose response

[00:23:45] will for this part of my professional development? Who's accountable? Who's informed, right? So those are kind of the different pieces but it really just depends, you know, what are those goals and expectations that we set early on in the relationship?

[00:23:57] Because some people on my personal board, you know, they're going to say, I don't want to talk about personal stuff. It's unlikely but they could, right? They might say, I don't want to talk about any promotion stuff. I don't want to talk about any job-raised stuff.

[00:24:08] I want to spend more time on developing these skills around these areas, right? So that's kind of how I go through that piece of it. How much of a piece is kind of professional development, career specific versus life development

[00:24:27] and just sort of- because I think about the people in your coffee shop example and they're young and you know, well yeah this will have application in your career but this is actually

[00:24:38] a bigger issue that just, you know, hey I want to be a CPA one day or whatever. How do you see like the integration I guess of the work component and just the life component? Yeah so we think about Mazzo's hierarchy of needs, right?

[00:24:56] And you have the basic human needs and then you get into some of the other things that are really nice to have but really we all need connection. We need that sensible longing and whenever we can get that in our professional development journey

[00:25:10] that gets us a lot closer to that concept and that essence of self actualization, right? And I kind of go through the professional development journey of hey what is it that I'd love

[00:25:21] to do with money wasn't an issue? Right? What is it that gets, you know makes me jump out of bed in the morning and then how can I learn about those opportunities? How can I prepare an interview for those opportunities? How can I hit the ground running first 30, 60, 90,

[00:25:35] 365 days and then five is how do I pay it forward, right? So paying it forward to that next group that's absolutely paramount to it but it really just comes down to hey this is my game plan

[00:25:49] and I'm going to make it happen. So let's just talk about the game plan. Is it five years out, 15 years out, 20 years out? How forward are we looking? There's another picture in the book where I captured my career map from 2017, 2018 and somewhat five years into my professional

[00:26:11] career and I projected out until age 53. So I projected out nearly three decades right a little and I said what I want to go from here to here to here to here and I look at it two

[00:26:27] different ways just like you're working on for a pose. I'm going to go bottoms up, I'm going to go top down right so I think top down is begin with the end of mind other coffee reference

[00:26:35] and I think I want to be for me it was COO of Lockheed Martin right? I said they don't at that time the position wasn't filled so I said great it's going to be fine by the you know

[00:26:45] 2045 I think I said I was going to be in that role you know. For it's probably not going to be filled between now and then anyways but then I asked different people I said if I want to be here what

[00:26:55] do I have to do before? Well you'd probably do like this or this or this so having multiple options. And before you do that you have to do this and this and this and here's the position,

[00:27:02] here's the education, here's the achievements like so we break the career map down into five I call it four quadrants plus the fun stuff and so we see those different pieces coming together

[00:27:13] over time and then that gets back up to current state right so the career map is broken up into three different segments past president future and that's top down right working backwards.

[00:27:23] We can also go bottoms up say hey here's where I am here's what I think is coming next right based on a promotion based on what I have interest in what other people have recommended to me

[00:27:32] I've been volunteers stretch assignments we've heard all of those things and then I can say well from there might make sense to do this and then could do this and then like I want to show for a little bit

[00:27:42] right so that live tour and work to live that cycle can change over time perfectly fine so I go through those different pieces you know top down bottoms up. Gunner head which which would you really recommend to someone who really depends on the person

[00:27:59] early and where do the attributes in one of the attributes of the person who would take take yeah so I think early on in your career you may not know what the top down option could be

[00:28:12] so the easier approach might be the bottoms up and just kind of take one step forward from where I am and as you learn about more opportunities I love whenever people are having a conversation with a

[00:28:23] board member and they say hey Bob let me see your career map it's like whoa you were this and this and this I didn't even know that was an opportunity I know that was an option by

[00:28:32] I learned about this thing called management consulting a couple years after college and I'm like where has this been my whole life you work hard you meet people you solve problems and then you do it again

[00:28:43] and again and again she did didn't know about that so just those kinds of things to have as many of those informational interviews early as possible but looking at the career maps of others extremely

[00:28:55] valuable so guns to my head easiest way to do it first round first pass going through the career map let's go bottoms up but if you can't tell us so so I appreciate what you're saying particularly

[00:29:08] for somebody young in their career because as you say it's like a little kid with sports or musical instruments like I don't even know what my choices are yet and it's almost a test for negatives

[00:29:19] oh I tried that that sucked like I don't want to do that anymore but that was pretty cool and you kind of see where that goes and it does get a little iterative and then you do probably have

[00:29:31] some critical mass of visibility and life experience professional experience you know okay based on what I've seen so far now maybe I can start to work it in the other direction yeah and say I would

[00:29:44] aspire to do this by the time of 53 which is an interesting and then work backwards so yeah I mean I can kind of see where it really kind of depends on where you are in your career that

[00:29:58] what would dictate which approach did you would take you um you mentioned well actually won't have that networking basically and in the board of directors do you have a point of view

[00:30:11] on yeah you might want to start with your bestie or somebody that's like you know you really well it's easy for you to be with what about people that you know I just met this person like

[00:30:23] pretty recently or you know my good friend Susan recommended beat me, peat and I hit it off the piece gets some pretty cool qualities I'm like no need for not a very long time

[00:30:37] but man I could really see him being valuable to me how well do I need to know somebody for them to be on my board it goes back to that checklist that I referenced earlier um you can have love

[00:30:48] it first sight right and I like in a lot of these concepts and analogies to dating and you know romantic relationships in that regard it's the same thing right we could meet up and say I love

[00:31:00] what you're all about we're aligned mentally we're aligned professionally right that that spiritually piece is kind of up to you but if you get those that trifecta man there's a lot in there

[00:31:10] and if that mentor has or that board member prospect has the capacity the time right man this is really cool you can go through all those items on that that kind of I call it the PBA you know

[00:31:23] checklist personal board of advisors checklist you could do all that in a couple of you know hours right you might want to have a couple of interactions before you formalize the relationship but you know Bob and chapter six navigating network networking with potential mentors

[00:31:39] I go through all of that right and that's where we see hey whenever um you know networking who are the different kinds of people add a networking event right do I want the other part

[00:31:49] this really important about this whole methodology is you want to find the people that are going to tell you what you need to hear not just what you want to hear you can find those folks and they're

[00:32:03] not that right but whenever it comes to serious professional development and growth which very often correlates to personal growth you know we had to be firm and one last piece on that personal and professional development whenever we get this thing right at work

[00:32:19] and we're able to find fulfillment enjoy we have less stress we have that sense of connection and belonging and we're able to do good for others and do that pay it forward piece whatever I

[00:32:30] leave the office right shut my laptop or whatever it is I turn off some of the work stuff which hopefully we're doing more and more frequently um I am able to have more of the life

[00:32:44] I want outside of work so by doing these things in the professional setting it gives us the space it gives us the opportunity to really live that life that that we want to live we have less

[00:32:56] stress our mind is in a better positive space as well so it all goes together well and and to like I've some appreciate you mentioning that uh colleagues that we work with Dr. Andy Garrett

[00:33:11] you're really kind of taught me the difference between work life balance in work life integration yeah but by balance like by definition these are things are an opposition and we're just trying to minimize the opposition forces that that's exhausting yeah

[00:33:28] that is exhausting and I got to be one thing at work and something else at home and or this doesn't align with my values and I'm you know trying to keep this going versus everything you just said like now these these things are harmonized yeah

[00:33:43] right I get to be the same person it weren't and the same person in my quote real life and I really and they they reinforce each other rather than compete with each other

[00:33:54] complement and supplement I think whenever we can be our true selves think of it like this right our body right I've hurt myself many many times playing sports and sometimes you know you're

[00:34:05] your your back gets out of line or your ankle is out of line what happens it's difficult to walk properly and I talked about this on a podcast recently without its purse glove and we talked about something of a career carer factor so whenever I'm better aligned these

[00:34:24] things then I'm able to walk more properly right I'm almost in that flow sense so same thing whenever I can have fewer of those competing friction points in my career and professionally

[00:34:37] and I can align and get into more of a flow I can get a lot more stuff done I'm happier so is that piece of real lining things similar to like we might do with our body as we go

[00:34:49] through that process really I love I love I'm gonna steal career carer factor yeah so one thing some wondering about Peter's and I think about you know our client here at career club

[00:35:01] you know all kinds of different personality types the I teach you at the beginning of recovering engineer you know this very seriously like methodology process step by step it all kind of makes sense

[00:35:14] that's one that's not everybody's work style and like how do you get enough discipline to be able to stay with that but two is and I want to really kind of get into the networking piece

[00:35:26] it's dude I'm all over your methodology like I get processed to then all this reaching out to people I don't know that's not my lane I'm an introvert and this is really uncomfortable for me

[00:35:39] this is not natural for me can you help me yeah so there's a couple of pages in there of introverting or sorry networking as an introvert yes okay so we we definitely get into it I've

[00:35:54] realized that not everybody is like me so but the other piece is you have to have something that says I'm going to do this this is not easy this is not something that just oftentimes does not just get

[00:36:06] handed to you it takes time it takes work and it takes iterating on it and let me tell you whenever it comes to networking sure I'm fine you know going up and saying hello and should

[00:36:16] do sing myself to people I'm really there to seek first to understand and listen we got two of these one of these for a reason right and I've you know fumbled and done bat on

[00:36:30] in introductory engagements right I'll I'll tell you that I've not done well sometimes but you learn from them right and so I'd say the biggest thing is if you're an introvert right we have some

[00:36:43] great tools that are around us right think of the people that are in your network that you could say hey you know I trust you I respect you I'm trying to find some other kind of person that's like this

[00:36:54] to help me with this career map thing that feels really weird and slimy but like is there anybody I could just sort of talk to to get some of their thoughts and feedback so warm introductions

[00:37:04] one that's a really nice way to take a look at it the second piece is take a look at like LinkedIn right and you can search for other people and you're not actually you know speaking to them or

[00:37:14] shaking their hand in real life but can you comment on some of their posts or maybe ask somebody a question and you know don't overthink it right there's a lot of people out there that love to talk

[00:37:25] about themselves look how much I'm talking on this single podcast right Bob but that's a way to kind of do it passively asynchronously and then I think one of the best ways is in person so figure

[00:37:37] out if you you could maybe go and join a meeting at a local rotary club I don't care if you're in high school college professional any phases I kind of go pre-career early career mid-career

[00:37:48] late career post career five phases of the career life cycle but rotary club is very welcoming if you're involved in church or religious communities that's a great way to meet people chamber of commerce fantastic way to meet people and you can say in any of those settings

[00:38:03] hey I'm new I don't really know anybody I just like to to meet some new folks right and so those are some opportunities whenever you get to a networking event you can go to event bright right there's

[00:38:16] lots of free events that you can go and check out virtual in person and a fantastic way to do that is you know talk to the person that's setting up the event you can get in line to get some food or

[00:38:28] get a drink at the bar alcoholic non alcoholic it doesn't matter and just kind of say hello to the person in front of you you're probably stuck with them for another 15 or 20 seconds and say hey what

[00:38:39] brought you here right I don't think anybody's going to you know be mad about that have you met any interesting people so far this evening right those are just a couple of ideas to get started we

[00:38:51] could go on and on no no I love it so go back to LinkedIn for me because you know career club we're working a lot obviously with people who career transition and you know they're getting the

[00:39:02] direction on what they want to do next why they want to do what they want to do next things like that and exactly what you said about you know find people to follow you know if there are companies

[00:39:14] of interest people that are doing the kind of role that you aspire to on another day following them you know they've got the cool feature now where you can ring the bell or you're kind of click on

[00:39:23] the bell next to the person be notified whenever they post content as a content creator and I think you would agree with this I know who's commenting on my stuff right and so I may never

[00:39:36] met some of these people and probably won't in real life but I know who they are and so if they reached out to me and they're doing more than like great posts but like hey that was really interesting

[00:39:49] what resonated with me was ex you know and like I mean really add value to the post like if they reached out to me and said hey Bob would you have like 15 20 minutes there's a couple things I just love to ask you

[00:40:03] I love your content like I'd promise you I'm going to say yes and I do say yes to those people because they took the time to invest in me first right which is amazing and so when they want to ask

[00:40:18] me something like of course I'm happy to help you one thing that I'll say you talked about they'll be not on the water and kind of the nautical stuff one of the key concepts we

[00:40:29] talked to people about is keeping an even keel right because of all the waves but then the first in it's a a cross take I guess is the right word where the first E is expected best of yourself

[00:40:43] and of others there are enough nice people out there who will say yes and I must be very directly to introverted people like I can't just like reach out to somebody like that that's just weird no it's not like if you're genuine and you truly wanted to ask

[00:41:04] Pete something about pathfinders I promise he's going to take your call he'll answer your email like there's enough nice people out there that will help you are there commudgen sure another people that to busy or whatever okay that's fine that's just we didn't say it was going

[00:41:21] to be easy yeah exactly but expecting the best of other people and not I just see people automatically disqualifying she's too important I'm sure they're too busy they wouldn't remember me whatever which might in the case that could happen if they pull things hands yet exactly

[00:41:40] so what other advice we would because you know one that directed networking that this is really where you know we work a lot with people and I'd love to get the benefit of your perspective on

[00:41:56] this is this very intentional networking and like if I want to be the COO of Lockheed on another like how do I go meet the people that can help me get there like and or hey I really need somebody

[00:42:14] to fill this role on my personal board of advisors I'm learning the Lingo PBA I just again you can say about my area and future question but I just see how much people struggle

[00:42:28] with doing that initial outreach to people then we'll feel like an air quote cold call to them so I love your piece of the LinkedIn supporting from afar and just to break that down how

[00:42:46] I do it right just another idea at least five words in a comment and have it be something that is more intentional that says hey I at least took eight seconds to skim through what you're talking

[00:43:02] about and I think that's where some of our interactions came from you can go ahead and follow them as fast as you want to maybe don't send a connection request just yet when you do send a

[00:43:11] connection request add a note definitely do that I think I probably have like 1500 connection requests that I'm haven't answered because there's no notes in them and I don't really know what's going

[00:43:22] on there so whenever you put that note in there super super valuable I'd probably do that for you know two three four weeks maybe a month right not one size fits all because people don't always

[00:43:33] post as frequently you catch me the last three months I haven't posted as frequently there's been a lot of things happening but I think that's the part one and then you know maybe you know I replied

[00:43:44] on Bob's posts and then he commented back and did that a second time at third time well this is kind of exciting and I haven't asked anything all I'm doing is helping you get your word out

[00:43:53] there further and further I'm learning from you I'm kind of feeling out the waters of in my line with this person's brand and what they're all about because just because somebody said oh my gosh

[00:44:03] Peter and Bob you're going to be great fit together obviously we do that thanks Jodie but there was also the piece of like hey I need to to check myself as well and you probably did the same thing let's

[00:44:14] see a little bit more what's what's happening here a couple other ideas of Bob is volunteer assignments right volunteer activities fantastic place to network and just meet other people and you know

[00:44:26] what you do it volunteer efforts you put your titles aside you put your badges side and your hand in that food to people at the food bank right you're picking up trash on the side of the highway

[00:44:36] last time I checked I don't care if you're a senior vice president or you're a level one engineer I can pick up trash you know pretty similarly and I can do good for others I don't care what

[00:44:47] level you are the organization stretch assignments you can say hey boss here's where I'm at right now is there anything else I can do to take some work off of your plate right what keeps you

[00:44:58] up at night I'm still gonna get my stuff done but I'm really interested in growing here see these other things of my career map some of the skills and achievements and accomplishments you know

[00:45:06] what are some of those things that I might be able to add in here right as stretch assignments go out of your comfort zone right one of the guys that I worked with uh he always said I'd take

[00:45:15] the jobs that other people wouldn't another mantra that mentors taught me is run to the red programs red programs with back to zapping whenever we manage a project we have a triangle of cost technical

[00:45:27] and schedule red typically means that we're behind on one or more of those things it's over cost it's behind schedule the technical is not correct and then the last piece I'd share on this

[00:45:39] again we could talk all day if I want to be the CEO then let's see who the person under them is and under and under and you know if you're working at the same company right you can usually see

[00:45:52] that in the global access directory whatever it is and see if you have a mutual connection there maybe cross reference over to LinkedIn click on the company go to the people and see who the

[00:46:04] you know people I know second connections third connections right and see how you can kind of work your way up because let's face it if you're a senior vice president executive vice president

[00:46:14] your time is much more difficult to come by but what about the person that's like a senior analyst in that food chain not gonna say their times less valuable but I will say that their calendar

[00:46:25] probably is not as jam packed all the time. Love love everything that you said I'm going to look forward to in when we start posting on this podcast some of those things you just said that it's

[00:46:37] great advice a couple others that I would add to it one is going into networking meetings and authentically intentionally seeking how you can add value to the relationship so again I'm

[00:46:52] kind of in the minds that right now have a lot of our members at career club who are in job search and so what's in it for the job secret is very obvious like you know I'm hoping

[00:47:02] ideally you know if an exact role but if not you can connect me to somebody but I want to meeting like that also like Pete how can I help you yeah like they see you you've got your company

[00:47:13] latitude I see you've written this book like what is helpful like to you and when you come into it not bartering but Jim and Jim and Lee looking to have a mutually beneficial relationship

[00:47:26] and an add value to the other person that's a very differentiated approach versus kind of giving me give me give me that I'm grant given take right and you want to be a net giver not a net

[00:47:38] taper the other thing that I would say in terms of doing outreach to people this works I promise you this works is say that you know there's an executive who is speaking at a conference on a

[00:47:54] topic that you're interested in or they were one upon cast or they were quoted in you know an article but it's something doing an email to them you know where it's jodied your comments and Forbes

[00:48:09] hey jodied I was just reading the Forbes article on career development and you know you highlighted x one things really struck me about that was why and in line with that I was wondering if you would

[00:48:21] be open to taking a few minutes with me I'm actually doing some career mapping right now yeah you're in a role that I would aspire to it one day and you know just any advice that you

[00:48:31] would have for me would be gold you know I know you're busy but if we could find a few minutes of next two weeks that would be amazing here's all that I hear's option B if that doesn't work here's a

[00:48:40] link on my calendar if there's somebody else that's easier to have me to work through your EA whatever and dude that works most people don't have the hoods but to do that kind of an outreach

[00:48:52] to begin with and when it's timely and relevant hey I saw you just spoke at this conference hey I just listened to this podcast and it's relevant what really struck me about that the

[00:49:05] reason this resonated with me and why I'm reaching out to you that's sort of the magic is being timely relevant I guess I'd add personal um that works people will respond to that it's it's it's

[00:49:20] huge bit and I want to add two other points to what you just shared right the given take piece Walter Bond who was one of the first people to help me with my code speaking in delivery he talks about

[00:49:33] his his books swim right parasite is bad and being a sucker fish to sharks is a good thing in the second thing as a job see you graduate just want to take that advice you gave one step deeper

[00:49:43] I love saying hey here's an idea here's what to do and here's an action you can take right so people can try it on for size right hey you know it looks learn about this position

[00:49:54] I've been in similar roles and can share some of my experiences to see if that would be helpful to you some of what worked it worked okay that's pretty cool and even if I'm not the right person

[00:50:05] for this position I will at least have no more about it so I can share more with the people I interact with in my network geez that's like one two three things that you know even if Bob's

[00:50:16] not the right fit or pizza on the right fit that could help me get my job done easier all right I'll give this guy second shot yes yeah so yeah what I love about you peanut my many things is you're very

[00:50:28] practical right this isn't just theoretical stuff this is like okay how do I actually go execute on what you're talking about and you know the famous expression you're not working your network and you're helping people understand how to do this you know really practical pragmatic

[00:50:47] way that again is fulfilling right that like you know unlike you like I love meeting new people I love helping people and connecting people like that that's what gives me energy in the day it's

[00:51:00] not a drag on me it's actually you know enhances might be able to do that and the fact that you're showing people how to do this you know is really meaningful I want to be mindful of the time

[00:51:12] there's 25 chapters I think in the book so I'm sure we have scratched the surface are there a couple things that we haven't covered pizza you think would be really important for people to

[00:51:25] understand about pathfinders and why it might be a good fit for them I wrap up the book with and for organizational use case so you might say wow this is fantastic for me as an individual

[00:51:38] but how can we incorporate this to my company so some ideas are around the onboarding process right to give somebody a t-shirt of panacophic up a notebook and a copy of pathfinders as they come in

[00:51:52] as a new employee that's your map to professional growth and a box or in a book right so that they have an idea we're teaching them how to fish the other pieces if you have some kind of a mentorship

[00:52:05] program right incorporate this to that program some of the other pieces in parts three are around some of that individual development and you get into some of this work around some of those assessments

[00:52:17] some of the trainings I can take so that I am you know continuing to grow myself and be my best self we also talk about you know full board meetings you know do I want to bring my whole pva together

[00:52:30] right sometimes yes sometimes know how do I go about that again there's more templates examples and things like that in the companion website more things you know always coming out a love love

[00:52:42] love hearing from people but I say the biggest thing is just pick it up read it and start to figure out what is the the best for you and I'll end with one quote here Bob from Bruce Lee

[00:52:54] I would run past his statue all the time on the on the water front whenever I was living in Hong Kong and I'm like what the heck so I started reading more about this fellow right has got this big statue

[00:53:04] and he says absorb what is useful discard what is not an ad what is uniquely your own ooh say that one more time discard what is not there's sorry sorry absorb what is useful discard what is not an ad what is uniquely your own ooh that is awesome

[00:53:25] Pete amazing thank you so much so if people want to to buy the book where what are the avenues to go do that oh I'll send you a link we have a website that makes it super simple you get

[00:53:36] some information about it you can find me on LinkedIn and you can go to pathfinder's the book has its own LinkedIn account it's available on Amazon but yeah I'll share the links so we can

[00:53:47] put it in the show notes and then yeah the show notes and final production of this will also have visual for a QR code link whatever it is actually like that's awesome Pete thank you so much

[00:53:57] it was great talking to you so easy time flies where I'm speaking with you I feel like I'm talking with a twin and happy mentoring month January 2024 happy mentoring month to everybody

[00:54:09] oh so I appreciate he thanks so much thanks Bob see you also everybody for taking a few minutes every day I hope you found today's episode really helpful I know I did I learned a bunch of new stuff

[00:54:20] and I just appreciate everything Pete had to share so with that we wish you well thank you so much your time and we'll catch you in the next episode and oh yeah I got a find it you've got all you need so just keep going