December 17, 2025 • 41 mins
Thinking about switching careers but not sure where to start? In this episode, Mandi Money breaks down what it really takes to make a successful career pivot in 2026 — without burning yourself out or making impulsive moves.
We talk about why self-care and self-trust are non-negotiable during career transitions, how to investigate new paths without rushing the process, and the mindset shifts required to move with confidence. Mandi also walks us through a five-step framework for career pivots, helping you identify what’s holding you back, explore different types of pivots, and own your story as you move forward.
Whether you’re feeling stuck, curious, or ready for something more, this conversation will help you move strategically toward a career that actually aligns with your goals.
WHAT WE GET INTO
-Why 2026 is shaping up to be a major year for career change
-The role of self-care and self-trust in navigating career pivots
-How to identify your personal career blockers and work through them
-The three types of career pivots: quit pivots, micro pivots, and bridge pivots
-Why you don’t have to quit your job to pivot successfully
-How to own your narrative and build confidence during transitions
LINKS
- Ready to start your own pivot? Access the free guide mentioned in the episode here:https://mandimoney.myflodesk.com/pivot
- Join the Brown Ambition YouTube Community: Search Brown Ambition Podcast on YouTube
- Connect with guest mentor Amina Altai: Look up The Ambition Trap
- Follow Mandi Money on IG & TikTok for more career and money guidance
- Leave a review on Apple Podcasts — your feedback helps BA grow!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, ba fam, let's be real for a second, and
y'all know I keep it a book. The job market
has been brutal, now not brutal trash, especially for women
of color. Over three hundred thousand of us have disappeared
from the workforce this year alone, and not by choice,
but because of layoffs, disappearing DEI programs, and stagnant wages
(00:20):
that keep cutting us out of opportunity. Our unemployment rate
has jumped to over seven percent, while our pay gap
continues to widen. I know all of that sounds dire,
but here's what I want y'all to know. You do
not have to wait for the system to save you.
That's exactly why I created the Mandy money Makers Group
coaching community. It is a coaching community that is built
(00:41):
for us by us. Inside the community, we're not just
talking about how to negotiate or to how to get
the job that you want. It's about finding purpose in
your career. It's about finding communities and others, feeling seen,
feeling heard, and also having a sounding board and a
mirror to reflect your own magic, your own sparkle right
(01:03):
back to yourself. In this community, you'll get group coaching
led by me, but you also get peer to peer
accountability with proven tools and resources that can help you
do what we have always done sin rise even when
the odds are stacked against us, despite all the challenges,
we will rise. If you're interested in joining the Mandy
(01:24):
money Makers community and having that support to bolster you
and help you tap back into your magic so that
you can lead your career with intention and heart and
your own intuition, trusting that again, please join us. You
can find information in the show notes of today's episodes
or go to mandymoney dot com slash community. That's Mandy
(01:47):
m A n d I money dot com slash community.
I would love to see y'all there. Enrollment is open,
so please go check out mandymoney dot com slash community today.
All right, hey, thea fam. If you've been feeling that tug,
(02:07):
that little whisper, that inkling in your gut that it's
maybe time to do something different with your career than
this episode is for you, I wanted to welcome y'all
back to Brown Ambition and say twenty twenty six is coming.
It's right around the corner, and I know a lot
of y'all are looking at your jobs, your paychecks, your finances,
your lives in general, and thinking, hmm, things are fine,
(02:31):
but things could be better, they could be different. I'm
really feeling called to change things up. Whether it's because
your industry is shifting, because your personal lives have had
changes this year, whatever the case may be. If you're
ready for something different for twenty twenty six, this is
the episode for you today. Hey, by the way, Mandy Money.
Here today's episode, we are getting real about what it
(02:53):
takes to make a career pivot in twenty twenty six
without actually blowing up your finances or your sanity. I
promise we're going to do this in a way that
is true to what you want, without again, like uprooting
everything and making seismic shifts and changes. I know. One
of the things that can often get in our way
when it comes to making pivots professionally personally is that
(03:16):
we try to do too much too soon, and the
goals that we have are so huge, so daunting, that
we fail to sort of take a step back and
think about what are the smallest pieces of this goal
that I can start to incorporate into my life now
so that we can get to where we want to go.
I have used this career pivot framework multiple times. I've
(03:36):
done a career reboot challenge at the top of last year,
which I broke down basically my career pivot framework into
a five day challenge. If that's something that y'all want
to do. After listening to this episode, I'm down. I
was thinking maybe I'll release each day of that five
day career reboot challenge as a mini episode, and then
instead of taking everything in in one mega episode, you
(03:59):
can sort of get each piece of the puzzle and
incremental steps, and at the end of those five days,
my hope is that you will feel like you have
the framework and the steps and the tools and resources
that you need to start taking those steps to creating
that career change that you want. So if that sounds
good to you, then let me know. Email me Brand
(04:20):
Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com or slide into my
dms at brand Ambition Podcast on IG. This episode today
is for anyone who's ever thought I know I meant
for more than this, but I don't feel like I
can afford to start over quite yet. Please stick with
me by the end of this conversation between you and me,
(04:42):
because it's just you and me, right, it's just you
and me. You're going to have a clearer plan, a
few concrete next steps, and most importantly, I am giving
you that permission that I know so many of us
are craving, the permission to take your career pivot seriously.
And yes, if you're watching on YouTube, I'm not in
my usual studio. I packed up my little stuff and
(05:02):
I got a beautiful hotel on the beach and I'm
here working on myself, working on my book, working on
my business. And I got to say, like, if you're
thinking about a little winter getaway on the beach, just
to like give you some a different change of scenery,
especially for my girls who work from home. I'm so
sick of the four walls of my teeny tiny little office,
(05:23):
so I thought, why not switch it up. And while
I'm here, I get so many hours back in my
day that would be eaten up, devoured by house stuff
and kids stuff and family stuff and just all the
you know, the little things that you know, day to
day life kind of pull us away from that deep
focused work. And I'm really grateful to have these few
days to myself. So this is me telling y'all, Winter
(05:46):
Beach is where it's at. Okay, So let's get into
the Career Pivot Playbook. So this is a five step playbook,
five step framework that I have been developing ever since
I launched my career practice five years ago, and honestly,
I've been working toward this probably for the entire ten
years I've been doing Brown ambition. So to introduce it
(06:07):
the Pivot Playbook, we have five steps. P is for prepare,
I for investigate, the We're going to venture forward. OH
is owning your narrative, and T is about taking us
with you on that journey. Let's get into it. So
as you are preparing to pivot, we're starting with the P.
This is all about not waiting for your FU moment.
(06:29):
I've talked about this before. You know what happens when
you get so burnt out or so stressed, and you
know you're feeling undervalued, maybe you're underpaid, or things are fine,
and you're just not very happy, and you let yourself
get worn down, worn down, worn down until you hit
that crisis mode where it's like I need to get
out of here or I'm actually going to snap. I'm
(06:52):
going to put my own self at risk. I may,
you know, I may get into an argument with a coworker,
I may do something to burn some bridges, like the
level of stress, the level of unhappiness, the lack of
self care that you were able to give to yourself
creates that like pressure cooker moment, and often too many
(07:13):
of us wait for it to get to that point
before we make a change. And so what I'm inviting
you to think about is what if we didn't wait
for that heightened sense of emotion where we are letting
that yeah, we're letting that exhaustion, that burnout make choices
for us. Because what can happen then is then you
find yourself unprepared for the next step and sort of
(07:34):
working from this space of oh gosh, you know, now
I've made this impulsive decision and it is right for
me ultimately. But if I had taken more time, if
I had put more thought into this, I could have
really set myself up for some success. And then maybe
you would be able to save more, you know, have
more of a nest egg set aside, an emergency fund
(07:55):
so that you can fund you know, this this next chapter,
if it does mean walking away before you have a
new opportunity lined up, like taking that prep work into consideration.
So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, ooh,
I'm about at that few moment, how can we slow
things down? How can you start really like treating this
(08:18):
almost like an injury, Like, how can you assess the
situation and start caring for yourself so that you can
get to a healthier frame of mind before you make
your next move. So, the number one cause of stalling
in your career stalling out in your career in general
that I have seen is a lack of self trust.
I know. It's like we're out here, we are whole adults,
(08:41):
we are managing our lives. But sometimes there's this crisis
of confidence that can happen when we stop trusting if
I try something new then I will be okay. Or
if I try something new and it doesn't work out
to the extent of my dream, my goal, my ambitions,
the best possible outcome, that I'm some kind of a
failure and that I couldn't then pivot again. And I
(09:04):
talk about self trust a lot, because when you're making
a change in your career, the key ingredient is that
you are trusting yourself, that you're not going to be
that you're going to be okay, that you are not
going to be thrust out there and unable to figure
out your next move without having a particular employer, without
having a particular particular job title. You know on your
(09:27):
resume that you are identifying with, but you really are saying,
I trust me, I trust my choices, I trust what
I want for myself, and I'm really the only one
who can dictate what that is. And that can feel
like a bit of a gamble, like we get really
tied to our title, to our paycheck, to that even
(09:47):
the name of the company we work for. When you
mean I've worked as some big brands, and I remember
when I left Yahoo Finance and I went out and
I joined a startup and it was a little known startup,
and I remember feeling like, oh, now, well, people actually
respond to my emails if I'm not Mandy woodruff Y'ahoo
Finance reporter Mandy woodroff y'ah who Finance correspondent. And I
(10:09):
had to trust that I was enough without that brand,
and thank goodness, I did. And I want that to
be something that you are thinking about as you're making
this way forward for yourself. So there's some affirmations that
I love to practice and invite y'all to practice. I
like to practice these with myself as well, because, yeah,
(10:31):
even I have my bad days. Y'all know I got
my bad days. I've been very transparent about those, and
these affirmations are just something that you can sort of
come back to and just remind yourself, Okay, I got this,
so I'll go through them. Now I get to decide
which path I take. I trust myself to make different
choices about my career. There's a version of me a
(10:56):
year from now who has already done the hard stuff
rooting for me. I'm going to say that one again
because it's my favorite. There's a version of me a
year from now who has done the hard stuff, and
she's rooting for me. If you can picture the older,
wiser you who is thinking about you in this moment,
(11:16):
Imagine that older wiser version of you recalling, man, I
really didn't think I could do it, but I remember
when I had to trust myself, take that leap of
faith and keep pushing. I'm so proud of myself. Just
envision and picture that version of yourself who's done the
hard stuff and imagine her rooting for you. I might
(11:39):
have gotten a little teary I thinking about that. I
was actually doing that exercise. When I was thinking about
I was working on my book earlier today, and I
was like, a year from now, this book is maybe
going to be out in the world, or as soon
to be out in the world, and I'm going to
be so proud of myself because I was sitting at
this table on my winter beach working on this book,
(12:00):
doing the day to day grind, the day to day work,
the un sexy, the unexciting, the uninstagrammable day to day
work that it takes to accomplish that big goal. And
I'm like, I know, she's so proud of me, and
she wants me to keep going. That person, that version
of yourself is also out there and she wants you
to keep going. Hey, ba fam, we got to take
(12:22):
a quick break, pay some bills, and we'll be right back.
As we're preparing to pivot, sometimes we don't even know
what it is that we want to do next. I
want to invite you to go to the show notes.
Right now. I'm going to put a link to a
workbook that I created it's got twenty something questions that
you can type into the workbook. It's a pdf. I mean,
you're welcome to print it out as well, but you
(12:43):
can type into the PDF and just answer these these
particular prompts sort of like a journal of some kind,
like a guided journal, where we're sort of asking I'm
sort of asking you questions to get at what is
it that you could potentially do next? And what is
it that you want for yourself next? And I'm a
huge fan of just taking this time for self reflection,
and that's something that hopefully once you finish this episode,
(13:06):
you'll go to the show notes download that guide. It's free,
and you can answer those questions for yourself and just
start to get at, Okay, what is it that I
am envisioning for myself in the future. Now, the next
step in preparation is identifying how and what the blockers
are that could get in my way. Often the blocker
is us, right, it's that mindset, is the mentality, but
(13:28):
it also can just be our perceived lack of skills, experience,
knowledge of that different path and how can we actually
get past that. So, for an example, I've worked with
many clients and I'm just going to use a generic example,
but a good, you know, pretty much a representative idea
of what that blocker can feel like. So let's say
(13:49):
that your goal is to switch career paths. Maybe you're
in customer support right now and you really want to
move over to user experience or UX design. Okay, so
blockers may be that. Okay, I'm then customer support right now.
I definitely help customers who are using these products understand
the challenges that they're facing. But I'm not in the
(14:09):
room creating the products right I don't have a direct
user experience experience. I'm not even one hundred percent sure
what UX design even entails. My resume does not look
like someone who has a lot of experience in UX design.
It's not going to like pop out when it comes
to submitting that resume or submitting that application out there.
(14:31):
And I also don't have any particular certifications or specific
education in UX. It can feel like such a tall
mountain to climb at that point, but because of your
experience and customer support, you know that you can be
good at it, and you know because the experience you
have helping customers deal with the challenges of those products
(14:54):
that you could absolutely be a part of the team
that's building them to make that experience even better for customers.
So when it comes to identifying these blockers, this is
not an exercise in making you feel even less prepared,
making you feel even more insecure, or doubting yourself even more,
or making you feel like, oh, this is too much
(15:15):
for me to even accomplish. It's about getting honest about
what those blockers are so that we can find solutions.
So some solutions to these problems are signing up and
looking for those education resources. You can find free workshops
on user design, on YouTube, on platforms like General Assembly.
Even local community colleges can look for to shadow a colleague.
(15:41):
If you're working at a big company already and there
is a UX team that you have access to, you
could ask the manager or calling on that team, start
building those relationships there and ask if you can shadow
them at different meetings or ask them to grab lunch
or coffee and just talk you through some of their
projects and you know what they do in their day
(16:02):
to day and be honest, you know, I am in
customer support right now, I really am interested in a
career and user design, user experience design, and I would
love to, you know, learn more about what you're doing,
or just be a fly in the wall at a
meeting just to start to absorb the kinds of conversations
and challenges that y'all are dealing with on a day
(16:22):
to day basis. What I love about, you know, taking
advantage of the teams that are already available to you
at work and being that fly in the wall at
a meeting is that it's no It's honestly no pressure
for your colleague. It's not like taking time out of
their day to find time to have coffee or have
lunch and then answer all your questions. Like you can
really just be a sponge and they can do what
(16:44):
they got to do and you're just there, you know,
absorbing everything. And think about that now not to say
that setting up those coffee or lunch chats with peers
or colleagues in that space is not also a good idea.
So you can make that list as well and start
to make those asks and then really start to tell
yourself the story to yourself of how your career and
(17:06):
customer support overlaps with UX Design. Now, if you're listening
to this and this is not your particular situation at all.
Just insert whatever current career you have right now, and
then the career that you or the job or the
path that you want to trans to move into, and
think about, Okay, how am I going to tell that
story about how where I'm at now can help me
(17:29):
or make sense to move on in this different direction,
and really owning that story and being able to see
what transferable skills you have where you are now, it's
going to help you immeasurably. It's going to help you,
whether it's when it comes to seeking out people to
have conversations with, because you're going to have to explain
to them, you know why it is that you want
(17:49):
to chat with them. It can help you in the
job interview process. You know, if you're lucky enough to
get an interview, you know you can explain to the
hiring manager or the recruiter. Here's how this story makes sense,
Here's how these skills are going to apply in this
new phase, and here's how I've arrived at this at
this point right now in my career and why I'm
pursuing this path all right. Next step is to investigate. Now,
(18:15):
investigating is really about giving yourself the freedom to be
a student and to be a sponge. And I think
a lot of times we think that we think about
something that we want next in our lives, but we
don't do like preliminary research or fact finding. So I
want this to be this sphase where you give yourself
a good amount of time, like thirty to ninety days,
(18:35):
to simply be as curious and be free to be
as curious as you want to be about this new path.
Your goal during this phase is to explore it all
without judgment or expectation of an outcome. You just aggressively
focus on gathering information about all the different types of
opportunities that could be out there in this path. So
(18:56):
over this thirty to ninety days, aim for some kind
of networking that can be those one on one coffee
or lunches, flying the wall, shadowing of colleagues at work.
Whatever it can be. It can be going to it
can be even joining a slack community or a disc
chord community. You'd be surprised how many like local discords
or slacks there are for your area in the career
(19:18):
path or industry that you're interested in. But aim for
at least twice a month every other week to have
some sort of networking opportunity and be specific about it.
I don't want you to you know, there's something to
be said for going to like broad based events or programs,
conferences where you're you know, introduced to like people from
(19:38):
a bunch of different industries. That can be great, But
when you are wanting to make like a concerted effort
to make a pivot, I want you to really like
try to drill down and niche down and definding that
community of people who are doing what it is that
you'd like to do and finding a way to get
into their path. This is also a time when you
can research things like additional courses, certificate skills, based learning opportunities,
(20:02):
grant programs, degree programs, the cost of this, how you
might fund it, get funded scholarships, you know, things like that.
This is not the time when I want to necessarily
be signing up for these things and getting you know, like,
oh gosh, I better do this right now. I think
it's about like just gathering the facts again so that
(20:22):
you can sort of weigh the pros and cons of
these different approaches and just have the information at your fingertips.
That's something that you have the benefit of doing when
you don't, you know, wait for that fu moment and
make a knee jerk reaction and pulse of decision to quit,
and then you're kind of like, Okay, I need to
make a move now because I got to pay these bills.
(20:43):
When you give yourself time to prepare and investigate follow
this framework, you're just you can ease into it, you know,
ease into it more thoughtfully over that thirty to ninety
days too, really start like thinking about your current skills,
the skills that are required for your new career path,
and then where is that overlap in the then diagram,
(21:04):
and then what do you have to you know, what
are those gaps that you want to start filling. This
is a really important part of the investigation process too,
is to be very picky about the voices in your head,
very picky about the content you're consuming, the people you're
surrounding with, the people that you are letting in to
(21:26):
this new goal of yours. Now, I am one for
saying the thing that you want out loud, because it
can be a little scary to tell other people what
it is that you're striving for or aiming for. But
I do want you to be particular about who you're
allowing into this new vision for your life. Are they
going to be a yes and person? Or are they
going to be a no butt person? So a yes
(21:47):
and person is someone who's going to help build on
that vision, encourage you, make it feel possible to you,
be optimistic for you, and give you ideas, help you
further your you know, your chances of reaching that goal.
A no butt person is someone who's going to look
for the why nots, is going to look for the blockers,
(22:09):
not going to be very solutions oriented, and may even
have an interest in you staying staying exactly where you are.
And I want you to be particularly picky about who
you allow in to this vision for your future. Now
that doesn't just mean people like, of course, like people
you're talk to, but also what content are you consuming?
(22:29):
Who are you following on social media? What are you reading,
what are you watching when you sit down to stream
in the evening or on the weekends. What is it
that you're consuming And is that content making you feel
like you're capable of achieving your goal or is it
helping you procrastinate and stay and keep you where you
are stay stuck, or even worse, is it making you
(22:52):
feel like you're not ready, Is it making you feel
like you're lacking something, and that this is maybe too
ambitious and audacious of a goal, and maybe you should
star to downplay it. This is the time when I say, girl,
go to the library. Go to the library. Go to
whatever section of the library makes sense for you, and
stack up some books of people who have done the
thing that you want to do and can inspire you
(23:15):
to keep going. So your memoir section, your biography section.
For me, when I was writing my book, I continue
to do this. Go to the library and just get
a stack. I call them an emotional support stack of books,
books that were similar, are similar to the kind of
book that I'm trying to write, And I stack them
up next to me, and I just think about each
of these individuals who had an idea and a goal
(23:37):
just like me, to finish their book, and they did it.
And I find it very comforting to sort of have
that stack of books next to me and to feel
that inspiration. So change the voices in your head during
this investigative time. Also, I'm down for the whole AI,
the whole chat bot, you know, coach chat bot prompts.
I'm down for that. If you put into whatever model
(23:59):
you like to you use, I use perplexity, you can
use chat GPT. But tell it about all the skills
you have, tell it about the job opportunities that you
are interested in, and ask it to be a thought
partner for you, helping you identify gaps that you may
want to fill, help you look for networking events, all
these steps that we have covered so far. An AI
(24:20):
tool can be a great partner in crime for you
to help you start to you know, make that list
of resources and help you just generate ideas for getting
you to that next stage that you want to be in.
All right. Number three on the list is venture forward.
So you've prepared to pivot, You've investigated time to venture forward.
This is when we talk about this is what I
(24:41):
talk about the four different kinds of pivots. So there's
a pivot in place, quit to pivot, micro pivot, and
the bridge pivot. Starting with pivot in place. Pivoting in
place is like it's sort of like the example I
said before, where you are already at a company. You
may have access to other teams, other resource versus and
you can take advantage of learning new skills and learning
(25:04):
new skills and being exposed to new information right where
you are. So ask yourself, who can you learn from
where you currently work? Who are your sponsors and what
do they think? A sponsor is different from a mentor.
A sponsor is someone who works at the company where
you work and can actively remove barriers in your way
because they believe in you and they want you to succeed.
(25:25):
They can be the one to say, Hey, put so
and so on the email for this meeting you know,
put her on the invitation. Hey, can you clear some
time in your calendar to talk to her? Can you
consider her for this opportunity? So find your sponsors, build
those relationships and ask them like, what do they think?
Next is what skills or learning opportunities are available where
I am now, whether it's tuition reimbursement, access to networking opportunities,
(25:50):
professional development fund? How can we take advantage of the
resources that are available to us, even if we're not
super happy with the role that we are right now
at the company we have? And can you make a
business case for the new skills you need so that
your company can cover your training? We love that. I mean,
you can budget a little. You can say, send me
(26:11):
to this conference I really want to do, you know,
this workshop that'll help me in my current job. They
don't got to know about the other three or four
speakers or events at that you know, at that networking event,
that a conference that you are going to hit up
that may prepare you for your next opportunity. You don't
got to tell them all that. Don't got to tell
them all that. But you can make a business case
(26:32):
so that you can start to acquire some new skills
that can serve you in your job now, but you
know your endgame that'll actually help you for your next
move as well. Next type of pivot is the quick
to pivot. So the sermon girlies who are at that
f you stage. So this is if you're truly burned
out or you need to train and build skills that
(26:52):
are going to require one hundred percent of your attention,
your focus. You can't do it part time, can't do
it while you're working part time, and you may add
actually need to walk away from your current role and
free up that space for yourself. Now. Of course there's
the bigger risk right because you are you know leaving
your current employer, leaving that you know, paycheck and that
quote unquote stability, even though we all know there's no
(27:14):
such thing as real job stability in this kind of economy,
but it can feel like a bigger risk when you
are so burnt out though that you are. You know
that stage where you're sort of a shell of yourself,
you or maybe if you're feeling depressed and just riddled
with anxiety and you're not your best, sparkliest self, and
(27:34):
at that stage, it's not even the wisest thing to
be out there looking for new roles bringing that energy
with you interviewing and networking when you when you are
so run down, you may need time to recharge, reinvigorate yourself,
and that just may not be possible while you are
still in a work situation that is sucking the life
(27:56):
out of you. And I understand that in these cases,
you want to find a way to ensure that you
have some accountability and structure before you walk away. That
may look like having an accountability buddy who can check
in with you on a weekly or bi weekly basis
to see how you're doing and are you taking some
steps to start to get on that new career path
(28:19):
and find that next opportunity can look like joining a community,
whether it's again like a local networking community or professional
development community, some sort of space where there's like minded
individuals who you can surround yourself with as you are
building yourself back up, but who can encourage you and
make it more likely that you're going to be taking
(28:41):
some small but like measurable steps toward getting your next opportunity. Also,
this is a good time to think about alternatives to
just straight up and quitting, Like could you take short
term disability leave short term medical leave? Now this is
of course, maybe you won't get paid your full salary,
I think it tops on your company whatever policy they have,
(29:02):
but you may get a proof for short term medical leave,
even partially paid on a mental health basis. If you
are seeing a therapist or your primary care doctor, you
can talk to them about recommending some time off or
your mental health or your health in general, and then
check with your HR team and see what sort of
(29:22):
information they can give you about what you would need
to qualify for that type of paid leave. And in
that case, that may give you a little bit of
a ramp, you know, a little bit of runway to
use as you are planning your next path, or even
just to not be planning at all, like sometimes you
might just want to use that time to simply rest, recharge,
(29:43):
try to sleep, drink water, move your body, the basic
things so that you're feeling better and you're more capable
of taking the steps you know you need to take
when you come back. The next type of pivot is
the micropivot. So if you're working nine to five, this
is something that you can do on the side, so
taking on contract work in the field that you want
to pursue, gathering some experience, building your credibility, if it
(30:07):
makes sense, setting up an LLC so you can make
it official and you can start to take advantage of
business tax breaks. This is also a great way to
build career resilience because you're building up an additional source
of income. You're also building up, you know, just an
additional reputation for yourself in a different skill set or field,
and you don't have to wait until you technically have
(30:30):
a full time job doing that thing. You can be
doing that thing, building up your network and your reputation
and even getting a client or two so that you
can start to again like, build up those testimonials, get
that experience, and then take that experience and put that
on your resume and use it to pivot into your
next role. Now, a key action item here is to
(30:51):
review your employee handbook and make sure that you're not
violating any policy your company may have about competing work.
And so if you're someone let's say you're an attorney,
and you are you're an intellectual property attorney and you
really want to pivot into I don't know, corporate finance,
(31:14):
they may have a clause in your contract that says
you can't you can't work for any other legal law
firm at all, even if it's in a different you know,
a different subject matter expertise. Just review the handbook and
protect yourself because companies can get a little dicey about us,
you know about us. A moonlighting, I should say last,
(31:38):
is the bridge to pivot. So a bridge pivot is
basically when you take a filler opportunity that doesn't have
to be the thing that you want next. Okay, maybe
you're someone who's got burnt out, you've quit, and you
may just need a job to make ends meet while
you figure out your next thing. There's no shame, and
a bridge pivot just something to again bridge between one
(32:00):
opportunity and the next. Potentially it might lead you to
what is next, but it may not be like the
dream job. I've done it. I have made this pivot,
and that's fine. You may need a couple of bridge
opportunities before you get to where you want to go.
I just want to normalize that, validate it is okay.
We got to eat right, all right? Next four Step
(32:22):
four out of the pivot playbook is to own your narrative.
You really want to tell the story. So it's inevitable
that while you're pivoting, someone's going to ask you, so,
what is it that one you know, why are you
making this change? Or like, why is it that you
want to pursue this path? I want you to be
ready with a clear and compelling answer for that. And
when we are making a pivot and we start to
(32:44):
doubt ourselves or it can feel uncomfortable, right, like we're
asking ourselves to make a shift, and we might start
to feel those doubts, and then when someone asks us
about why we're making this change, those doubts can start
to seep through and we don't sort of say it
with our full chest. And when you talk about it
in that way without that full you know, conviction and
(33:05):
belief in yourself, that makes other people not feel so
sure of you as well. And that's something that you
want to stay on. You want to get ahead of
and start to practice. So by the time you are
speaking to someone who may have an opportunity, they can attach,
you know, direct you to or connect you to an
opportunity or a person who can help you that they
(33:26):
feel like, Okay, this person's going to do it. This
person is more than capable. I understand. I want to
root for them, and that really comes from you owning
your story. Hey ba fam, we got to take a
quick break, pay some bills and we'll be right back.
So some ways that you can start to tell the
story of your career shift. You want to update your
(33:47):
LinkedIn networks or other social media channels and let them
in on the pivot that you're trying to make. You
can make a list of peers, family, friends, new connections
and share that new goal individually with EAT with each
one of them. You can share your progress anywhere it
can be seen social media, emails, blog, substack, podcast, YouTube channel,
(34:09):
just somewhere where you can let people in to your journey.
And then when you found your new people, your new
connections or investing in existing connections, people who support you
on this new path, engage with them and practice explaining
and not explaining, but practice telling them your story and
why it is that you are making the change that
you're making. This is easier said than done. It takes time.
(34:33):
I want you to be okay with that. Be patient,
be gentle with yourself. This whole pivot playbook is not
meant to be accomplished in a week, two weeks, months.
Even this may take you all of twenty twenty six,
it may take you half of twenty twenty six. It's
important work that can definitely get you to that next phase.
(34:54):
But practicing that patience and gentleness with yourself is going
to be essential along the way, especially when it comes
to the part where you're owning your story. It just
takes time to break it in. And you know, it's
like a good pair of boots, like you want to
wear them around the house for a while, right before
they start to feel really comfortable to you. That can
apply to our stories as well. And last, but not least,
(35:16):
take Somebody with You, Pivot playbook, the t in this
take somebody with you. It can be me, It could
be the Brown Ambition community. Let us know on Patreon
in the comments. You can join a coaching community. You
can join a network of that you make of your
own friends, family, colleagues, peers. But let people follow you
along on the journey so that you are not doing
(35:37):
it alone. Ask people to check in with you, Set
up certain check in points for yourself with others so
that you are not doing it alone. This ish is hard.
It does not happen overnight, and it would be a
mistake to think that you're any less of a success
or any less capable of making a change if you
do it with other people helping. You all deserve, and
(36:01):
you especially deserve that support and that accountability and that
encouragement that you're going to need along the way to
make these shifts. So think about the voices that you
are allowing into you, into your mind. You know, the
people that you were allowing into your circle, the content
you're consuming, and all of that really factors into who
(36:23):
are you allowing to come along on the journey with
you and keep you motivated along the way. Now, y'all
know I am right here in your corner, but I
can't be with you there every day. You know, every
day side by side. There's people in your life who
would love to support you though, and how can you
let them in so that they can be there for
you to help you along the way. Okbi fam Well,
(36:45):
I just want to say thank you for listening to
this episode. I hope that this you feel you've listened
to this and you start to feel encouraged about what
could be next for you and your career. I hope
also you'll ask me any questions you have, let me
know what you are planning. If if you want to
make me and Brown Ambition the first people the person
that you tell about this new path you want to pursue,
(37:06):
I'm all for it. If that will make it realer
for you and give you that start to spark that
encouragement and the motivation that you need to see it through,
Let's do this. Email me. I'm at Brownambition Podcast at
gmail dot com or you can DM the Brand Ambition
Podcast on ig I'm always here to answer your career
and finance questions. Please please hit me up and let
(37:27):
me let me really cheer you on. I do the
show for y'all. I care about your journeys. I think
we all deserve to be on a path that fulfills
us and lights us up. It's no shame if that
path is not the one that you're on right now.
But you are the only one that can get yourself
in a new direction, and I hope that listening to
(37:47):
the show helps spark that little motivation that you might
need to start taking some steps in this new direction.
I am rooting for y'all always. I am wishing you
the happiest, healthiest holiday. I hope that you take some
time off to recharge, and I feel so blessed and
honored to be a part of y'all's lives in the
(38:08):
way that I am with Brown Ambition. I am going
to be taking the rest of twenty twenty five off.
You'll hear some throwback episodes until I come back in
early January. In the meantime, please please send me your
emails your DMS if you have any questions or this
brings up anything for you that you want to share
(38:28):
with me. And I hope to see y'all in the
new year very soon. I'm sending you all the love
Ba fam, Thank you so much for this year, for
all your support, and I will see you next year. Bye.
Hey ba fam, Let's be real for a second, and
y'all know I keep it a book. The job market
has been brutal, no, not brutal, trash, especially for women
(38:51):
of color. Over three hundred thousand of us have disappeared
from the workforce this year alone, and not by choice,
but because of layoffs, disappearing DEI programs, and stagnant wages
that keep cutting us out of opportunity. Our unemployment rate
has jumped to over seven percent, while our pay gap
continues to widen. I know all of that sounds dire,
(39:13):
but here's what I want y'all to know. You do
not have to wait for the system to save you.
That's exactly why I created the Mandy money Makers Group
coaching community. It is a coaching community that is built
for us by us. Inside the community, we're not just
talking about how to negotiate or to how to get
the job that you want. It's about finding purpose in
(39:34):
your career. It's about finding communities and others, feeling seen,
feeling heard, and also having a sounding board and a
mirror to reflect your own magic, your own sparkle right
back to yourself. In this community, you'll get group coaching
led by me, but you also get peer to peer
accountability with proven tools and resources that can help you
(39:56):
do what we have always done since Rise and when
the odds are stacked against us, despite all the challenges,
we will rise. If you're interested in joining the Mandy
Moneymakers community and having that support to bolster you and
help you tap back into your magic so that you
can lead your career with intention and heart and your
(40:17):
own intuition, trusting that again, please join us. You can
find information in the show notes of today's episodes or
go to mandymoney dot com slash community. That's Mandy m
a NDI money dot com slash community. I would love
to see y'all there. Enrollment is open, so please go
(40:39):
check out mandymoney dot com slash community today. Okay, va fan,
thank you so much for listening to this week's show.
I want to shout out to our production team, Courtney,
our editor, Carla, our fearless leader for idea to launch productions.
I want to shout out my assistant Lauda Escalante and
(41:00):
Cameron McNair for helping me put the show together. It
is not a one person project, as much as I
have tried to make it so these past ten years.
I need help, y'all, and thank goodness I've been able
to put this team around me to support me on
this journey. And to y'all, ba fam, I love you
so so so so much. Please rate, review, subscribe, Make
(41:22):
sure you sign up to the newsletter to get all
the latest updates on upcoming episodes, and until next time,
talk to you soon. Bea buye
Hey, ba fam, let's be real for a second, and
y'all know I keep it a book. The job market
has been brutal, now not brutal trash, especially for women
of color. Over three hundred thousand of us have disappeared
from the workforce this year alone, and not by choice,
but because of layoffs, disappearing DEI programs, and stagnant wages
(00:20):
that keep cutting us out of opportunity. Our unemployment rate
has jumped to over seven percent, while our pay gap
continues to widen. I know all of that sounds dire,
but here's what I want y'all to know. You do
not have to wait for the system to save you.
That's exactly why I created the Mandy money Makers Group
coaching community. It is a coaching community that is built
(00:41):
for us by us. Inside the community, we're not just
talking about how to negotiate or to how to get
the job that you want. It's about finding purpose in
your career. It's about finding communities and others, feeling seen,
feeling heard, and also having a sounding board and a
mirror to reflect your own magic, your own sparkle right
(01:03):
back to yourself. In this community, you'll get group coaching
led by me, but you also get peer to peer
accountability with proven tools and resources that can help you
do what we have always done sin rise even when
the odds are stacked against us, despite all the challenges,
we will rise. If you're interested in joining the Mandy
(01:24):
money Makers community and having that support to bolster you
and help you tap back into your magic so that
you can lead your career with intention and heart and
your own intuition, trusting that again, please join us. You
can find information in the show notes of today's episodes
or go to mandymoney dot com slash community. That's Mandy
(01:47):
m A n d I money dot com slash community.
I would love to see y'all there. Enrollment is open,
so please go check out mandymoney dot com slash community today.
All right, hey, thea fam. If you've been feeling that tug,
(02:07):
that little whisper, that inkling in your gut that it's
maybe time to do something different with your career than
this episode is for you, I wanted to welcome y'all
back to Brown Ambition and say twenty twenty six is coming.
It's right around the corner, and I know a lot
of y'all are looking at your jobs, your paychecks, your finances,
your lives in general, and thinking, hmm, things are fine,
(02:31):
but things could be better, they could be different. I'm
really feeling called to change things up. Whether it's because
your industry is shifting, because your personal lives have had
changes this year, whatever the case may be. If you're
ready for something different for twenty twenty six, this is
the episode for you today. Hey, by the way, Mandy Money.
Here today's episode, we are getting real about what it
(02:53):
takes to make a career pivot in twenty twenty six
without actually blowing up your finances or your sanity. I
promise we're going to do this in a way that
is true to what you want, without again, like uprooting
everything and making seismic shifts and changes. I know. One
of the things that can often get in our way
when it comes to making pivots professionally personally is that
(03:16):
we try to do too much too soon, and the
goals that we have are so huge, so daunting, that
we fail to sort of take a step back and
think about what are the smallest pieces of this goal
that I can start to incorporate into my life now
so that we can get to where we want to go.
I have used this career pivot framework multiple times. I've
(03:36):
done a career reboot challenge at the top of last year,
which I broke down basically my career pivot framework into
a five day challenge. If that's something that y'all want
to do. After listening to this episode, I'm down. I
was thinking maybe I'll release each day of that five
day career reboot challenge as a mini episode, and then
instead of taking everything in in one mega episode, you
(03:59):
can sort of get each piece of the puzzle and
incremental steps, and at the end of those five days,
my hope is that you will feel like you have
the framework and the steps and the tools and resources
that you need to start taking those steps to creating
that career change that you want. So if that sounds
good to you, then let me know. Email me Brand
(04:20):
Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com or slide into my
dms at brand Ambition Podcast on IG. This episode today
is for anyone who's ever thought I know I meant
for more than this, but I don't feel like I
can afford to start over quite yet. Please stick with
me by the end of this conversation between you and me,
(04:42):
because it's just you and me, right, it's just you
and me. You're going to have a clearer plan, a
few concrete next steps, and most importantly, I am giving
you that permission that I know so many of us
are craving, the permission to take your career pivot seriously.
And yes, if you're watching on YouTube, I'm not in
my usual studio. I packed up my little stuff and
(05:02):
I got a beautiful hotel on the beach and I'm
here working on myself, working on my book, working on
my business. And I got to say, like, if you're
thinking about a little winter getaway on the beach, just
to like give you some a different change of scenery,
especially for my girls who work from home. I'm so
sick of the four walls of my teeny tiny little office,
(05:23):
so I thought, why not switch it up. And while
I'm here, I get so many hours back in my
day that would be eaten up, devoured by house stuff
and kids stuff and family stuff and just all the
you know, the little things that you know, day to
day life kind of pull us away from that deep
focused work. And I'm really grateful to have these few
days to myself. So this is me telling y'all, Winter
(05:46):
Beach is where it's at. Okay, So let's get into
the Career Pivot Playbook. So this is a five step playbook,
five step framework that I have been developing ever since
I launched my career practice five years ago, and honestly,
I've been working toward this probably for the entire ten
years I've been doing Brown ambition. So to introduce it
(06:07):
the Pivot Playbook, we have five steps. P is for prepare,
I for investigate, the We're going to venture forward. OH
is owning your narrative, and T is about taking us
with you on that journey. Let's get into it. So
as you are preparing to pivot, we're starting with the P.
This is all about not waiting for your FU moment.
(06:29):
I've talked about this before. You know what happens when
you get so burnt out or so stressed, and you
know you're feeling undervalued, maybe you're underpaid, or things are fine,
and you're just not very happy, and you let yourself
get worn down, worn down, worn down until you hit
that crisis mode where it's like I need to get
out of here or I'm actually going to snap. I'm
(06:52):
going to put my own self at risk. I may,
you know, I may get into an argument with a coworker,
I may do something to burn some bridges, like the
level of stress, the level of unhappiness, the lack of
self care that you were able to give to yourself
creates that like pressure cooker moment, and often too many
(07:13):
of us wait for it to get to that point
before we make a change. And so what I'm inviting
you to think about is what if we didn't wait
for that heightened sense of emotion where we are letting
that yeah, we're letting that exhaustion, that burnout make choices
for us. Because what can happen then is then you
find yourself unprepared for the next step and sort of
(07:34):
working from this space of oh gosh, you know, now
I've made this impulsive decision and it is right for
me ultimately. But if I had taken more time, if
I had put more thought into this, I could have
really set myself up for some success. And then maybe
you would be able to save more, you know, have
more of a nest egg set aside, an emergency fund
(07:55):
so that you can fund you know, this this next chapter,
if it does mean walking away before you have a
new opportunity lined up, like taking that prep work into consideration.
So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, ooh,
I'm about at that few moment, how can we slow
things down? How can you start really like treating this
(08:18):
almost like an injury, Like, how can you assess the
situation and start caring for yourself so that you can
get to a healthier frame of mind before you make
your next move. So, the number one cause of stalling
in your career stalling out in your career in general
that I have seen is a lack of self trust.
I know. It's like we're out here, we are whole adults,
(08:41):
we are managing our lives. But sometimes there's this crisis
of confidence that can happen when we stop trusting if
I try something new then I will be okay. Or
if I try something new and it doesn't work out
to the extent of my dream, my goal, my ambitions,
the best possible outcome, that I'm some kind of a
failure and that I couldn't then pivot again. And I
(09:04):
talk about self trust a lot, because when you're making
a change in your career, the key ingredient is that
you are trusting yourself, that you're not going to be
that you're going to be okay, that you are not
going to be thrust out there and unable to figure
out your next move without having a particular employer, without
having a particular particular job title. You know on your
(09:27):
resume that you are identifying with, but you really are saying,
I trust me, I trust my choices, I trust what
I want for myself, and I'm really the only one
who can dictate what that is. And that can feel
like a bit of a gamble, like we get really
tied to our title, to our paycheck, to that even
(09:47):
the name of the company we work for. When you
mean I've worked as some big brands, and I remember
when I left Yahoo Finance and I went out and
I joined a startup and it was a little known startup,
and I remember feeling like, oh, now, well, people actually
respond to my emails if I'm not Mandy woodruff Y'ahoo
Finance reporter Mandy woodroff y'ah who Finance correspondent. And I
(10:09):
had to trust that I was enough without that brand,
and thank goodness, I did. And I want that to
be something that you are thinking about as you're making
this way forward for yourself. So there's some affirmations that
I love to practice and invite y'all to practice. I
like to practice these with myself as well, because, yeah,
(10:31):
even I have my bad days. Y'all know I got
my bad days. I've been very transparent about those, and
these affirmations are just something that you can sort of
come back to and just remind yourself, Okay, I got this,
so I'll go through them. Now I get to decide
which path I take. I trust myself to make different
choices about my career. There's a version of me a
(10:56):
year from now who has already done the hard stuff
rooting for me. I'm going to say that one again
because it's my favorite. There's a version of me a
year from now who has done the hard stuff, and
she's rooting for me. If you can picture the older,
wiser you who is thinking about you in this moment,
(11:16):
Imagine that older wiser version of you recalling, man, I
really didn't think I could do it, but I remember
when I had to trust myself, take that leap of
faith and keep pushing. I'm so proud of myself. Just
envision and picture that version of yourself who's done the
hard stuff and imagine her rooting for you. I might
(11:39):
have gotten a little teary I thinking about that. I
was actually doing that exercise. When I was thinking about
I was working on my book earlier today, and I
was like, a year from now, this book is maybe
going to be out in the world, or as soon
to be out in the world, and I'm going to
be so proud of myself because I was sitting at
this table on my winter beach working on this book,
(12:00):
doing the day to day grind, the day to day work,
the un sexy, the unexciting, the uninstagrammable day to day
work that it takes to accomplish that big goal. And
I'm like, I know, she's so proud of me, and
she wants me to keep going. That person, that version
of yourself is also out there and she wants you
to keep going. Hey, ba fam, we got to take
(12:22):
a quick break, pay some bills, and we'll be right back.
As we're preparing to pivot, sometimes we don't even know
what it is that we want to do next. I
want to invite you to go to the show notes.
Right now. I'm going to put a link to a
workbook that I created it's got twenty something questions that
you can type into the workbook. It's a pdf. I mean,
you're welcome to print it out as well, but you
(12:43):
can type into the PDF and just answer these these
particular prompts sort of like a journal of some kind,
like a guided journal, where we're sort of asking I'm
sort of asking you questions to get at what is
it that you could potentially do next? And what is
it that you want for yourself next? And I'm a
huge fan of just taking this time for self reflection,
and that's something that hopefully once you finish this episode,
(13:06):
you'll go to the show notes download that guide. It's free,
and you can answer those questions for yourself and just
start to get at, Okay, what is it that I
am envisioning for myself in the future. Now, the next
step in preparation is identifying how and what the blockers
are that could get in my way. Often the blocker
is us, right, it's that mindset, is the mentality, but
(13:28):
it also can just be our perceived lack of skills, experience,
knowledge of that different path and how can we actually
get past that. So, for an example, I've worked with
many clients and I'm just going to use a generic example,
but a good, you know, pretty much a representative idea
of what that blocker can feel like. So let's say
(13:49):
that your goal is to switch career paths. Maybe you're
in customer support right now and you really want to
move over to user experience or UX design. Okay, so
blockers may be that. Okay, I'm then customer support right now.
I definitely help customers who are using these products understand
the challenges that they're facing. But I'm not in the
(14:09):
room creating the products right I don't have a direct
user experience experience. I'm not even one hundred percent sure
what UX design even entails. My resume does not look
like someone who has a lot of experience in UX design.
It's not going to like pop out when it comes
to submitting that resume or submitting that application out there.
(14:31):
And I also don't have any particular certifications or specific
education in UX. It can feel like such a tall
mountain to climb at that point, but because of your
experience and customer support, you know that you can be
good at it, and you know because the experience you
have helping customers deal with the challenges of those products
(14:54):
that you could absolutely be a part of the team
that's building them to make that experience even better for customers.
So when it comes to identifying these blockers, this is
not an exercise in making you feel even less prepared,
making you feel even more insecure, or doubting yourself even more,
or making you feel like, oh, this is too much
(15:15):
for me to even accomplish. It's about getting honest about
what those blockers are so that we can find solutions.
So some solutions to these problems are signing up and
looking for those education resources. You can find free workshops
on user design, on YouTube, on platforms like General Assembly.
Even local community colleges can look for to shadow a colleague.
(15:41):
If you're working at a big company already and there
is a UX team that you have access to, you
could ask the manager or calling on that team, start
building those relationships there and ask if you can shadow
them at different meetings or ask them to grab lunch
or coffee and just talk you through some of their
projects and you know what they do in their day
(16:02):
to day and be honest, you know, I am in
customer support right now, I really am interested in a
career and user design, user experience design, and I would
love to, you know, learn more about what you're doing,
or just be a fly in the wall at a
meeting just to start to absorb the kinds of conversations
and challenges that y'all are dealing with on a day
(16:22):
to day basis. What I love about, you know, taking
advantage of the teams that are already available to you
at work and being that fly in the wall at
a meeting is that it's no It's honestly no pressure
for your colleague. It's not like taking time out of
their day to find time to have coffee or have
lunch and then answer all your questions. Like you can
really just be a sponge and they can do what
(16:44):
they got to do and you're just there, you know,
absorbing everything. And think about that now not to say
that setting up those coffee or lunch chats with peers
or colleagues in that space is not also a good idea.
So you can make that list as well and start
to make those asks and then really start to tell
yourself the story to yourself of how your career and
(17:06):
customer support overlaps with UX Design. Now, if you're listening
to this and this is not your particular situation at all.
Just insert whatever current career you have right now, and
then the career that you or the job or the
path that you want to trans to move into, and
think about, Okay, how am I going to tell that
story about how where I'm at now can help me
(17:29):
or make sense to move on in this different direction,
and really owning that story and being able to see
what transferable skills you have where you are now, it's
going to help you immeasurably. It's going to help you,
whether it's when it comes to seeking out people to
have conversations with, because you're going to have to explain
to them, you know why it is that you want
(17:49):
to chat with them. It can help you in the
job interview process. You know, if you're lucky enough to
get an interview, you know you can explain to the
hiring manager or the recruiter. Here's how this story makes sense,
Here's how these skills are going to apply in this
new phase, and here's how I've arrived at this at
this point right now in my career and why I'm
pursuing this path all right. Next step is to investigate. Now,
(18:15):
investigating is really about giving yourself the freedom to be
a student and to be a sponge. And I think
a lot of times we think that we think about
something that we want next in our lives, but we
don't do like preliminary research or fact finding. So I
want this to be this sphase where you give yourself
a good amount of time, like thirty to ninety days,
(18:35):
to simply be as curious and be free to be
as curious as you want to be about this new path.
Your goal during this phase is to explore it all
without judgment or expectation of an outcome. You just aggressively
focus on gathering information about all the different types of
opportunities that could be out there in this path. So
(18:56):
over this thirty to ninety days, aim for some kind
of networking that can be those one on one coffee
or lunches, flying the wall, shadowing of colleagues at work.
Whatever it can be. It can be going to it
can be even joining a slack community or a disc
chord community. You'd be surprised how many like local discords
or slacks there are for your area in the career
(19:18):
path or industry that you're interested in. But aim for
at least twice a month every other week to have
some sort of networking opportunity and be specific about it.
I don't want you to you know, there's something to
be said for going to like broad based events or programs,
conferences where you're you know, introduced to like people from
(19:38):
a bunch of different industries. That can be great, But
when you are wanting to make like a concerted effort
to make a pivot, I want you to really like
try to drill down and niche down and definding that
community of people who are doing what it is that
you'd like to do and finding a way to get
into their path. This is also a time when you
can research things like additional courses, certificate skills, based learning opportunities,
(20:02):
grant programs, degree programs, the cost of this, how you
might fund it, get funded scholarships, you know, things like that.
This is not the time when I want to necessarily
be signing up for these things and getting you know, like,
oh gosh, I better do this right now. I think
it's about like just gathering the facts again so that
(20:22):
you can sort of weigh the pros and cons of
these different approaches and just have the information at your fingertips.
That's something that you have the benefit of doing when
you don't, you know, wait for that fu moment and
make a knee jerk reaction and pulse of decision to quit,
and then you're kind of like, Okay, I need to
make a move now because I got to pay these bills.
(20:43):
When you give yourself time to prepare and investigate follow
this framework, you're just you can ease into it, you know,
ease into it more thoughtfully over that thirty to ninety
days too, really start like thinking about your current skills,
the skills that are required for your new career path,
and then where is that overlap in the then diagram,
(21:04):
and then what do you have to you know, what
are those gaps that you want to start filling. This
is a really important part of the investigation process too,
is to be very picky about the voices in your head,
very picky about the content you're consuming, the people you're
surrounding with, the people that you are letting in to
(21:26):
this new goal of yours. Now, I am one for
saying the thing that you want out loud, because it
can be a little scary to tell other people what
it is that you're striving for or aiming for. But
I do want you to be particular about who you're
allowing into this new vision for your life. Are they
going to be a yes and person? Or are they
going to be a no butt person? So a yes
(21:47):
and person is someone who's going to help build on
that vision, encourage you, make it feel possible to you,
be optimistic for you, and give you ideas, help you
further your you know, your chances of reaching that goal.
A no butt person is someone who's going to look
for the why nots, is going to look for the blockers,
(22:09):
not going to be very solutions oriented, and may even
have an interest in you staying staying exactly where you are.
And I want you to be particularly picky about who
you allow in to this vision for your future. Now
that doesn't just mean people like, of course, like people
you're talk to, but also what content are you consuming?
(22:29):
Who are you following on social media? What are you reading,
what are you watching when you sit down to stream
in the evening or on the weekends. What is it
that you're consuming And is that content making you feel
like you're capable of achieving your goal or is it
helping you procrastinate and stay and keep you where you
are stay stuck, or even worse, is it making you
(22:52):
feel like you're not ready, Is it making you feel
like you're lacking something, and that this is maybe too
ambitious and audacious of a goal, and maybe you should
star to downplay it. This is the time when I say, girl,
go to the library. Go to the library. Go to
whatever section of the library makes sense for you, and
stack up some books of people who have done the
thing that you want to do and can inspire you
(23:15):
to keep going. So your memoir section, your biography section.
For me, when I was writing my book, I continue
to do this. Go to the library and just get
a stack. I call them an emotional support stack of books,
books that were similar, are similar to the kind of
book that I'm trying to write, And I stack them
up next to me, and I just think about each
of these individuals who had an idea and a goal
(23:37):
just like me, to finish their book, and they did it.
And I find it very comforting to sort of have
that stack of books next to me and to feel
that inspiration. So change the voices in your head during
this investigative time. Also, I'm down for the whole AI,
the whole chat bot, you know, coach chat bot prompts.
I'm down for that. If you put into whatever model
(23:59):
you like to you use, I use perplexity, you can
use chat GPT. But tell it about all the skills
you have, tell it about the job opportunities that you
are interested in, and ask it to be a thought
partner for you, helping you identify gaps that you may
want to fill, help you look for networking events, all
these steps that we have covered so far. An AI
(24:20):
tool can be a great partner in crime for you
to help you start to you know, make that list
of resources and help you just generate ideas for getting
you to that next stage that you want to be in.
All right. Number three on the list is venture forward.
So you've prepared to pivot, You've investigated time to venture forward.
This is when we talk about this is what I
(24:41):
talk about the four different kinds of pivots. So there's
a pivot in place, quit to pivot, micro pivot, and
the bridge pivot. Starting with pivot in place. Pivoting in
place is like it's sort of like the example I
said before, where you are already at a company. You
may have access to other teams, other resource versus and
you can take advantage of learning new skills and learning
(25:04):
new skills and being exposed to new information right where
you are. So ask yourself, who can you learn from
where you currently work? Who are your sponsors and what
do they think? A sponsor is different from a mentor.
A sponsor is someone who works at the company where
you work and can actively remove barriers in your way
because they believe in you and they want you to succeed.
(25:25):
They can be the one to say, Hey, put so
and so on the email for this meeting you know,
put her on the invitation. Hey, can you clear some
time in your calendar to talk to her? Can you
consider her for this opportunity? So find your sponsors, build
those relationships and ask them like, what do they think?
Next is what skills or learning opportunities are available where
I am now, whether it's tuition reimbursement, access to networking opportunities,
(25:50):
professional development fund? How can we take advantage of the
resources that are available to us, even if we're not
super happy with the role that we are right now
at the company we have? And can you make a
business case for the new skills you need so that
your company can cover your training? We love that. I mean,
you can budget a little. You can say, send me
(26:11):
to this conference I really want to do, you know,
this workshop that'll help me in my current job. They
don't got to know about the other three or four
speakers or events at that you know, at that networking event,
that a conference that you are going to hit up
that may prepare you for your next opportunity. You don't
got to tell them all that. Don't got to tell
them all that. But you can make a business case
(26:32):
so that you can start to acquire some new skills
that can serve you in your job now, but you
know your endgame that'll actually help you for your next
move as well. Next type of pivot is the quick
to pivot. So the sermon girlies who are at that
f you stage. So this is if you're truly burned
out or you need to train and build skills that
(26:52):
are going to require one hundred percent of your attention,
your focus. You can't do it part time, can't do
it while you're working part time, and you may add
actually need to walk away from your current role and
free up that space for yourself. Now. Of course there's
the bigger risk right because you are you know leaving
your current employer, leaving that you know, paycheck and that
quote unquote stability, even though we all know there's no
(27:14):
such thing as real job stability in this kind of economy,
but it can feel like a bigger risk when you
are so burnt out though that you are. You know
that stage where you're sort of a shell of yourself,
you or maybe if you're feeling depressed and just riddled
with anxiety and you're not your best, sparkliest self, and
(27:34):
at that stage, it's not even the wisest thing to
be out there looking for new roles bringing that energy
with you interviewing and networking when you when you are
so run down, you may need time to recharge, reinvigorate yourself,
and that just may not be possible while you are
still in a work situation that is sucking the life
(27:56):
out of you. And I understand that in these cases,
you want to find a way to ensure that you
have some accountability and structure before you walk away. That
may look like having an accountability buddy who can check
in with you on a weekly or bi weekly basis
to see how you're doing and are you taking some
steps to start to get on that new career path
(28:19):
and find that next opportunity can look like joining a community,
whether it's again like a local networking community or professional
development community, some sort of space where there's like minded
individuals who you can surround yourself with as you are
building yourself back up, but who can encourage you and
make it more likely that you're going to be taking
(28:41):
some small but like measurable steps toward getting your next opportunity. Also,
this is a good time to think about alternatives to
just straight up and quitting, Like could you take short
term disability leave short term medical leave? Now this is
of course, maybe you won't get paid your full salary,
I think it tops on your company whatever policy they have,
(29:02):
but you may get a proof for short term medical leave,
even partially paid on a mental health basis. If you
are seeing a therapist or your primary care doctor, you
can talk to them about recommending some time off or
your mental health or your health in general, and then
check with your HR team and see what sort of
(29:22):
information they can give you about what you would need
to qualify for that type of paid leave. And in
that case, that may give you a little bit of
a ramp, you know, a little bit of runway to
use as you are planning your next path, or even
just to not be planning at all, like sometimes you
might just want to use that time to simply rest, recharge,
(29:43):
try to sleep, drink water, move your body, the basic
things so that you're feeling better and you're more capable
of taking the steps you know you need to take
when you come back. The next type of pivot is
the micropivot. So if you're working nine to five, this
is something that you can do on the side, so
taking on contract work in the field that you want
to pursue, gathering some experience, building your credibility, if it
(30:07):
makes sense, setting up an LLC so you can make
it official and you can start to take advantage of
business tax breaks. This is also a great way to
build career resilience because you're building up an additional source
of income. You're also building up, you know, just an
additional reputation for yourself in a different skill set or field,
and you don't have to wait until you technically have
(30:30):
a full time job doing that thing. You can be
doing that thing, building up your network and your reputation
and even getting a client or two so that you
can start to again like, build up those testimonials, get
that experience, and then take that experience and put that
on your resume and use it to pivot into your
next role. Now, a key action item here is to
(30:51):
review your employee handbook and make sure that you're not
violating any policy your company may have about competing work.
And so if you're someone let's say you're an attorney,
and you are you're an intellectual property attorney and you
really want to pivot into I don't know, corporate finance,
(31:14):
they may have a clause in your contract that says
you can't you can't work for any other legal law
firm at all, even if it's in a different you know,
a different subject matter expertise. Just review the handbook and
protect yourself because companies can get a little dicey about us,
you know about us. A moonlighting, I should say last,
(31:38):
is the bridge to pivot. So a bridge pivot is
basically when you take a filler opportunity that doesn't have
to be the thing that you want next. Okay, maybe
you're someone who's got burnt out, you've quit, and you
may just need a job to make ends meet while
you figure out your next thing. There's no shame, and
a bridge pivot just something to again bridge between one
(32:00):
opportunity and the next. Potentially it might lead you to
what is next, but it may not be like the
dream job. I've done it. I have made this pivot,
and that's fine. You may need a couple of bridge
opportunities before you get to where you want to go.
I just want to normalize that, validate it is okay.
We got to eat right, all right? Next four Step
(32:22):
four out of the pivot playbook is to own your narrative.
You really want to tell the story. So it's inevitable
that while you're pivoting, someone's going to ask you, so,
what is it that one you know, why are you
making this change? Or like, why is it that you
want to pursue this path? I want you to be
ready with a clear and compelling answer for that. And
when we are making a pivot and we start to
(32:44):
doubt ourselves or it can feel uncomfortable, right, like we're
asking ourselves to make a shift, and we might start
to feel those doubts, and then when someone asks us
about why we're making this change, those doubts can start
to seep through and we don't sort of say it
with our full chest. And when you talk about it
in that way without that full you know, conviction and
(33:05):
belief in yourself, that makes other people not feel so
sure of you as well. And that's something that you
want to stay on. You want to get ahead of
and start to practice. So by the time you are
speaking to someone who may have an opportunity, they can attach,
you know, direct you to or connect you to an
opportunity or a person who can help you that they
(33:26):
feel like, Okay, this person's going to do it. This
person is more than capable. I understand. I want to
root for them, and that really comes from you owning
your story. Hey ba fam, we got to take a
quick break, pay some bills and we'll be right back.
So some ways that you can start to tell the
story of your career shift. You want to update your
(33:47):
LinkedIn networks or other social media channels and let them
in on the pivot that you're trying to make. You
can make a list of peers, family, friends, new connections
and share that new goal individually with EAT with each
one of them. You can share your progress anywhere it
can be seen social media, emails, blog, substack, podcast, YouTube channel,
(34:09):
just somewhere where you can let people in to your journey.
And then when you found your new people, your new
connections or investing in existing connections, people who support you
on this new path, engage with them and practice explaining
and not explaining, but practice telling them your story and
why it is that you are making the change that
you're making. This is easier said than done. It takes time.
(34:33):
I want you to be okay with that. Be patient,
be gentle with yourself. This whole pivot playbook is not
meant to be accomplished in a week, two weeks, months.
Even this may take you all of twenty twenty six,
it may take you half of twenty twenty six. It's
important work that can definitely get you to that next phase.
(34:54):
But practicing that patience and gentleness with yourself is going
to be essential along the way, especially when it comes
to the part where you're owning your story. It just
takes time to break it in. And you know, it's
like a good pair of boots, like you want to
wear them around the house for a while, right before
they start to feel really comfortable to you. That can
apply to our stories as well. And last, but not least,
(35:16):
take Somebody with You, Pivot playbook, the t in this
take somebody with you. It can be me, It could
be the Brown Ambition community. Let us know on Patreon
in the comments. You can join a coaching community. You
can join a network of that you make of your
own friends, family, colleagues, peers. But let people follow you
along on the journey so that you are not doing
(35:37):
it alone. Ask people to check in with you, Set
up certain check in points for yourself with others so
that you are not doing it alone. This ish is hard.
It does not happen overnight, and it would be a
mistake to think that you're any less of a success
or any less capable of making a change if you
do it with other people helping. You all deserve, and
(36:01):
you especially deserve that support and that accountability and that
encouragement that you're going to need along the way to
make these shifts. So think about the voices that you
are allowing into you, into your mind. You know, the
people that you were allowing into your circle, the content
you're consuming, and all of that really factors into who
(36:23):
are you allowing to come along on the journey with
you and keep you motivated along the way. Now, y'all
know I am right here in your corner, but I
can't be with you there every day. You know, every
day side by side. There's people in your life who
would love to support you though, and how can you
let them in so that they can be there for
you to help you along the way. Okbi fam Well,
(36:45):
I just want to say thank you for listening to
this episode. I hope that this you feel you've listened
to this and you start to feel encouraged about what
could be next for you and your career. I hope
also you'll ask me any questions you have, let me
know what you are planning. If if you want to
make me and Brown Ambition the first people the person
that you tell about this new path you want to pursue,
(37:06):
I'm all for it. If that will make it realer
for you and give you that start to spark that
encouragement and the motivation that you need to see it through,
Let's do this. Email me. I'm at Brownambition Podcast at
gmail dot com or you can DM the Brand Ambition
Podcast on ig I'm always here to answer your career
and finance questions. Please please hit me up and let
(37:27):
me let me really cheer you on. I do the
show for y'all. I care about your journeys. I think
we all deserve to be on a path that fulfills
us and lights us up. It's no shame if that
path is not the one that you're on right now.
But you are the only one that can get yourself
in a new direction, and I hope that listening to
(37:47):
the show helps spark that little motivation that you might
need to start taking some steps in this new direction.
I am rooting for y'all always. I am wishing you
the happiest, healthiest holiday. I hope that you take some
time off to recharge, and I feel so blessed and
honored to be a part of y'all's lives in the
(38:08):
way that I am with Brown Ambition. I am going
to be taking the rest of twenty twenty five off.
You'll hear some throwback episodes until I come back in
early January. In the meantime, please please send me your
emails your DMS if you have any questions or this
brings up anything for you that you want to share
(38:28):
with me. And I hope to see y'all in the
new year very soon. I'm sending you all the love
Ba fam, Thank you so much for this year, for
all your support, and I will see you next year. Bye.
Hey ba fam, Let's be real for a second, and
y'all know I keep it a book. The job market
has been brutal, no, not brutal, trash, especially for women
(38:51):
of color. Over three hundred thousand of us have disappeared
from the workforce this year alone, and not by choice,
but because of layoffs, disappearing DEI programs, and stagnant wages
that keep cutting us out of opportunity. Our unemployment rate
has jumped to over seven percent, while our pay gap
continues to widen. I know all of that sounds dire,
(39:13):
but here's what I want y'all to know. You do
not have to wait for the system to save you.
That's exactly why I created the Mandy money Makers Group
coaching community. It is a coaching community that is built
for us by us. Inside the community, we're not just
talking about how to negotiate or to how to get
the job that you want. It's about finding purpose in
(39:34):
your career. It's about finding communities and others, feeling seen,
feeling heard, and also having a sounding board and a
mirror to reflect your own magic, your own sparkle right
back to yourself. In this community, you'll get group coaching
led by me, but you also get peer to peer
accountability with proven tools and resources that can help you
(39:56):
do what we have always done since Rise and when
the odds are stacked against us, despite all the challenges,
we will rise. If you're interested in joining the Mandy
Moneymakers community and having that support to bolster you and
help you tap back into your magic so that you
can lead your career with intention and heart and your
(40:17):
own intuition, trusting that again, please join us. You can
find information in the show notes of today's episodes or
go to mandymoney dot com slash community. That's Mandy m
a NDI money dot com slash community. I would love
to see y'all there. Enrollment is open, so please go
(40:39):
check out mandymoney dot com slash community today. Okay, va fan,
thank you so much for listening to this week's show.
I want to shout out to our production team, Courtney,
our editor, Carla, our fearless leader for idea to launch productions.
I want to shout out my assistant Lauda Escalante and
(41:00):
Cameron McNair for helping me put the show together. It
is not a one person project, as much as I
have tried to make it so these past ten years.
I need help, y'all, and thank goodness I've been able
to put this team around me to support me on
this journey. And to y'all, ba fam, I love you
so so so so much. Please rate, review, subscribe, Make
(41:22):
sure you sign up to the newsletter to get all
the latest updates on upcoming episodes, and until next time,
talk to you soon. Bea buye
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