How Career Pivots Really Happen | Mary Olson-Menzel | 735

Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast, which is Leveraging Thought leadership. Today, my guest is Mary Olson Menzel. She's a renowned career expert, a seasoned executive coach, and the author of the national bestselling book, what lights you up. Illuminate your path and take the next big step in your career. She's an active member of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 communities, and she's done a lot of amazing and interesting things that we'll talk about. So welcome aboard. Mary, how are you?

Speaker B: Thank you, Peter. It's great to be here.

Speaker A: So let me ask you sort of my favorite question. It's my show, so I get to do what I want sometime. It's the only place, I think. How'd you get here? How did this happen?

Speaker B: Oh, my, what a loaded question. Um, it was a circuitous path, and that part of what I think is the most beautiful thing about it, you know, started my career as a television reporter many, many years ago and was innately curious about getting the story and figuring out what kind of makes people tick and what makes people do the things that they do. From there.

Speaker A: What kind of reporting? Was there any specific. Was it investigative? Was it any particular type that you focused on if you're under 35? Google Television reporter, just by the way. Yeah, it was a thing. It was a cool thing.

Speaker B: Like Edgar? Um, no. You know, I was so young. I was just out of college. I had done a couple internships at TV stations and then got hired by one of the, uh, stations that I did my internship in. So I was. I was low man on the totem pole, literally. I was the field reporter who went out and covered, you know, the anniversary of the Girl Scouts, you know, you know, USA and the, you know, all kinds of different things. Local community events, I think. Yeah, it was fun, but it was a lot of running around, I'll tell you that.

Speaker A: Cool. Very cool.

Speaker B: So from there. So that was a great question. From there, I actually kind of fell into recruiting. Believe it or not, I went to go interview for a job because I was, as a reporter, young, um, reporters don't make too much money, right. So I was teaching aerobics and reporting clues and working at the Clinique counter at Lord and Taylor, all to make ends meet.

Speaker A: And I thought, now we also have to tell people to Google Lord and Taylor because they no longer exist.

Speaker B: Oh, gosh, yes.

Speaker A: And aerobics is what we did before Pilates and.

Speaker B: Yes, yes, Fitness instructor. Fitness instructor, yes. Oh, my gosh, that's. I'm really aging myself, aren't I?

Speaker A: No, no, we're. No, I'm feeling right at home. But, uh, there might be, you know, two young people that listen to this, so I'm just going to make sure they feel included so they don't whine and cry and all that.

Speaker B: Yes, Young people, I'm, um, happy to help in whatever pivots you're going to make in your. In your life, but did. I went to go interview at a recruiting firm to take a job at an ad agency and follow in my dad's footsteps. Oh, wow. And I was actually the first runner up. You know, I was like, they offered the job to somebody else, but literally I was their number two candidate if that person turned down. And so after I nursed, uh, my disappointment, that search firm actually offered me a job.

Speaker A: Oh, wow, that's unusual.

Speaker B: It was very unusual. And it's one of those things, Peter, I think, for. For young and people of all ages is, you know, be open to the opportunities that are around you because sometimes they show up in the. The funniest of places where you least expect it, and it could put you on a trajectory that leads you to your next greatest career.

Speaker A: So let me ask you this. I would imagine the reporting piece, because reporting isn't all that different from consulting, isn't all that different from being an author. There's a curiosity, there's a, uh, research piece, there's a storytelling piece. Right. But then you go to recruiting and then the on air, like, what do you think? Some of the common threads were that maybe the folks at the recruiting company said, ooh, she's got talent. She could win at this, because recruiting's not an easy game.

Speaker B: No, no. I think what they saw was the drive that I had, you know, the working three jobs, not afraid to work hard. But, um, also the way that the guy, Rich Bradley. I'll throw that out. Rich Bradley gave me this chance in recruiting, and, um, the way that he framed it was he said, take your interviewing skills and just put them in a different direction.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: To help people get jobs. And so I. It was a pivot, but it was using my existing skills of interviewing and just doing it in a different way. I would.

Speaker A: I would call it more of a. A context shift.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like, so if you were to set the context to. To a candidate of, hey, I'm going to just prep you for this interview. And I'm qualified to do that because I've interviewed blah Blah, blah, blah. And you know, and you're probably giving them pointers on how to communicate, get to the point, be prepared. How do you handle things with. When, when you. Like there's some things there. So it's not like you went off and became a yak farmer. There's a real, you know, sometimes when we look backwards, there's a red that's there that at the moment seems like this is craziness. Like kind of makes sense.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I feel, uh, that thread has taken me through every job in my life. So thank you for even pointing that out. And I think that's the really interesting thing is that innate curiosity and those interviewing skills and the desire to help people. That's the other thread. You know, going into, even reporting the news, I was always driven by the desire to help people live better lives and understand their lives better. And then I got to do that in recruiting and help people find jobs.

Speaker A: Right, that's very cool. Yeah, cool. So, and then, so now fast forward a couple of weeks till today or uh, maybe a couple. So the coaching, writing books, all the things that you do now talk about like who you serve and how you, what kind of problems they come to you or what are they hoping to get done as a result of interacting with you.

Speaker B: Yeah. I'm gonna just take that thread one step further and also say, you know, that recruiting and all of that launched me into a career in corporate America. Mhm. Where I had a boss and a mentor who believed in me wholeheartedly and supported my career development. So I did 10 years in a corporate environment where the recruiting and the coaching became simultaneous. And so that then led me to, when I had three young kids at home 14 years ago, to jump off that cliff, leave corporate America and start my own company.

Speaker A: Got it.

Speaker B: And that's where the pattern of watching what it is that illuminates people, what it is that lights people up, what it is that gets people excited to go to work every day, became kind of my life's work and study. And so I created a coaching methodology to help people pivot into new jobs or get promoted in their existing jobs.

Speaker A: Stay there a minute because when you say I created a coaching methodology, I would push back on that and say, if I were to look at your calendar from 14 years ago, it didn't say this two week block, I'm going to create a coaching methodology. They tend to kind of happen. Like it evolves. Yeah. So how there's a million coaching methodologies out there. So it's not like the world was begging for a new one. What is it about your methodology that's different, that gives people something. Some insight or some value that the other. The others that are out there? Because a lot of coaches use other people's methodologies, which is fine, but you had to create something new. So what was behind that?

Speaker B: So what I saw as an executive recruiter was a clear path about how people could either get promoted or get new jobs.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And what happens, Peter, and you know this because you've been in this world of thought leadership for so long, but people, when they're at that precipice or that inflection point of, like, wondering what's next for them, they often can't see it themselves.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So I was helping hundreds of people, okay. Their job search or getting promoted. And, And I was doing a lot of it because it was referrals and it was also, you know, people.

Speaker A: I just wanted. You're. You're. You're spotting patterns a bit emotionally detached from the, um. The person looking for a job that's might be stressed or upset that they're losing a job or ner. Like what you don't have. Not that you're emotionally detached from the client, but you have the ability to look at it emotionally and say, it's clearly obvious that when you say X, it doesn't come across like this, or whatever those patterns are. Right. So you're sitting in the middle of this as. As a. As a big life experiment, observing this, right?

Speaker B: Yes. We always call it business anthropology.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker B: We're in there, like, really, you know, watching it all unfold and learning from it and helping others learn from it. And. And what a lot of my clients have said is, you know, you saw the path before I did.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But that is because I'm, um, this, you know, I am this observer of watching what has happened, what's happening for them, and then knowing how to create success and having done it not only myself, but help hundreds of other people do it.

Speaker A: So then you port that into a coaching framework and methodology, right?

Speaker B: Yes. Yes.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: We called it the ten Step pivot program for many years.

Speaker A: Got it. And who were the ideal clients for that program? Because there's usually another pattern there, Right? Like, not. Not every coach is for everyone.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. For us, in the beginning, it was executives who were looking to make a career change or executives who were trying to get promoted within their own corporations. Okay. And so that it started with just executives, but then it led to an executive saying, can you help my Wife, can you help my husband? My daughter, can you help my niece, my nephew? All of that. And then my husband said to me, mary, you're not a nonprofit. You have to actually do something with all of these people you're helping and

Speaker A: send an invoice, which would be nice, right?

Speaker B: Yeah. That was kind of the impetus for creating that framework for not only those executives who could afford it, but creating working groups and all kinds of different things for people who maybe couldn't afford an executive coach. And that then led to the impetus for the book because then I really wanted this to get out for more people who didn't even have access to a coach.

Speaker A: If you ever wondered how strong ideas become visible, trusted and scalable, that's the work behind the Thought Leadership Handbook. Bill Sherman Naranariel and I wrote it for experts who are ready to move from insight to real impact. Learn more@thought leadershiphandbook.com and order it today at Amazon, BNN Bookshop or Amplify. Right. So the book is a way to democratize the intellectual property of the thought, uh, leadership and anybody that can come up with whatever the 25 bucks or whatever the book costs they those ideas. Right. We're not gating them behind a paywall and any of that and whatever. I think oftentimes thought leaders are trying to figure out how to serve multiple markets. And the CEO of the hat of the thought leaders says, well, go for the maximum value, right? Go for the clients that'll pay you the most, which is a logical, rational, economic piece. But then the heart side says, oh, I wish I could help more people. You know, this is kind of where I see the voice of your husband going, oh my God. You know, like, how do you. Yeah, and there are ways to do many of those things. Right. It just not, uh, doesn't mean that you're not going to take higher paying clients that will pay you the big bucks because you're good and really good at what you do. Right. And not do a ton of pro bono. Or it's like exactly my book do it yourself or here's an online course or how have you filled out the gap between you have book and then you have working with you Think of those as sort of two ends of the low ticket, high ticket. Is there stuff in the.

Speaker B: There is, there is, there's, there's workshops, you know, facilitate a lot of workshops, many in corporate, but also for associations and conferences where we can help kind of guide and package some of this. Uh, it is funny you bring up, you know, like my Want to help people. And my stepdaughter calls this, you know, what lights you up is Mary's love letter to the world. Because I knew that I wasn't probably going to make a ton of money, you know, selling books. Authors who publish with big publishing houses just don't. The publishing houses make the money. But what.

Speaker A: Any money to be made.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. Well, what it has led to, though, is tremendous opportunities where I can walk in and help guide people in corporate America who are needing to adapt in a way that is future ready. We. We call it future fitness for a corporation, but also online training group coaching, all of those things.

Speaker A: So stay there for a minute. Right. So. So a book is a weird. If we. If we think about a book for a moment as a product because it is something people buy most products. If I were, you know, in the business of selling whatever, you know, pens, right. My P and L would be some function of the amount of profit I generate per pen, less the cost per pen sales, marketing, general, you know, GNA and all that. And I'm either going to make a good pen or not, and make a profit or not. It's kind of easy. But books are weird in that you could have a book that's wildly successful but commercially doesn't do much for you, or a book that, uh, through the metrics that a publisher uses. How many units did we sell? Right. Maybe it's mediocre. I'm making up 3,000 books, 5,000 books, under 10,000 books, whatever. That made you a fortune, right? Yeah, because it's, it's, uh. People don't understand how bizarro that is. Like, if I didn't sell enough, uh, pens to make a profit, I'd be a failure in the pen business. But I could sell a thousand books and pick up, you know, 50 clients, and I'm like, wow, I'm golden. Right? Like, it's. It's odd.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, that, that's so funny because that's going to lead us to the conversation about the next book. Right? But this book was difficult. I wrote it for all the right reasons, because I wanted to help people and, um, because we had a waiting list of clients. And when somebody is looking for a new job, they can't wait for a waiting list. You know, they can't wait a year to do that. So that's kind of why the book went out there. What was interesting is the publisher, of course, looks at it from. How many bulk books can Mary sell exactly? Uh, what, you know, speaking events and, you know, bulk Sales could she get? It's all about book sales for the publisher. Of course, that's the business they're in.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: What I struggled with when this book came out is that it is a book about finding a new job and then how do you create success and lead. The second half of the book is all about creating success once you've landed that job. And I think that's what makes it a really nice, well rounded book. But I had a really hard time. I struggled with. Okay, I can't walk into. I'll use IBM as an example because I have done speaking events at IBM

Speaker A: and I want to teach your people how to get the heck out of here. They don't want to pay.

Speaker B: Yeah, I don't want to do that. IBM doesn't want me to come in and say, hey everybody, look for a job that lights you up. But what has the bonus product of this is that it's created or led to a lot of talks around career resilience and the path of reinventing and reigniting your light within the organization that you're already working.

Speaker A: I want to comment on that. Then I want to get to the new book. So it led to, to you seems glaringly obvious, but to me it only is when you listen to the market. And I think far too often thought leaders, I don't say stubborn, but they don't hear the signals. Right. They put, put out a book and they think the purpose of the book is X and looking at X. But when the market gives them other signals, right. And tells them other things and tells them whatever because it wasn't their design or what their desired intent was, they're like, nah, I don't think so. Right. And then, then four or five times you're like, huh, huh. Okay. Yeah. Okay, that's cool. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: I mean it was really fascinating. I mean, I think my biggest surprise ask was through a, uh, contact at the 100 coaches, one of my friends and colleagues, Jennifer Fondre, she had spoken at a prison. So suddenly I got a phone call from the head of this prison who has a program for women going back to work.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: I wrote this book as a inspirational business book.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Yet it was helping women in prison create a career path and a path forward.

Speaker A: And so that never would have been on your whiteboard of never never. That's my point. Yeah, I love it.

Speaker B: Exactly. It's these moments of like, wow, oh my God, this is touching. Lives that I can't even fathom it would have taught.

Speaker A: Yeah, right. So tell Me about the new thing. The next.

Speaker B: There's a couple, there's a couple of new things in uh, progress and I think there, there's one that I'm going to be writing with a friend and a colleague, a former client actually of mine that I can't talk too much about yet, but uh, um, I can talk about is the one that is currently in proposal stage and that is more of a kind of like what lights you up for leaders. Right.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: How do leaders continue to motivate and inspire and make sure that no matter what's happening around them in the world or in the company, that they can kind of stay on this path where they're keeping their teams ignited.

Speaker A: So it's an extension of what lights you up, but for the specific leader population. Right. Because they have different nuances and things to be aware of. And so you're really building on the IP that's in the first book.

Speaker B: There's. Right, right. And as we know Peter, and for most people who are going to be listening to us today, leaders of any age or any stage are having to adapt to unprecedented things. And even more so, I mean we thought, you know, the global pandemic was one thing, but it's not stopped since then. And so the idea of leaders having to navigate uncharted territories and un. Known waters, giving them that guide and that, you know, kind of flashlight to help them light the way is.

Speaker A: But that's really, to me, I think a lot of leadership literature, if you will, was really glorified management stuff. The way to do things around here is the way to do things around here. Leadership. We can't go as say a 40 year old high performer and say, well let's go talk to Peter and Mary who've been here longer and say how they dealt with AI when they were at my stage of their career. Like that. It just. Right. So he was going into the wilderness going, I don't have the answer, I don't know. But here's think I'm going to figure this out together and be. To say they don't know what they don't know. I mean it takes courage. It takes. That's different than a manager that has the expertise to do the thing, the task, the whatever versus the leaders. Like listen, we're going to take this path. Who knows, maybe there's lions and tigers and bears and you know, like whatever. Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, and how do I help those people, you know, the people that work for me in my organization navigate the lions and the tigers and the bears along the way. Yeah. And keep them motivated too.

Speaker A: Yep. Totally. Very, very cool. So look forward to seeing the new. The new thing and the secret thing that you. You'd have to kill me if you told me what it was. I don't want that. I want that on my head or yours. Right.

Speaker B: Next podcast. Next podcast.

Speaker A: Podcast. Okay, we'll have. We'll have more on that. This has been cool. Thank you for sharing your, uh, your journey and your story. And, uh, we see if we can Google, uh, Mary Elsa Mendel, aerobics instructor. We'll see if there's any bad video on YouTube.

Speaker B: There we go. Thanks You, Peter. Great to talk to you.

Speaker A: To learn more about Thought Leadership leverage, please visit our website@thought leadershipleverage.com to reach me directly, feel free to email me at Peter thought leadershipleverage.com and please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on itunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.