How To Approach Career Reinvention with Jaclyn Mullen

Episode Transcript
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Sarah Caminiti (00:03):
How many times have you thought there has to be
a better way?
Welcome to Epochal Growth, apodcast where we invite industry
leaders and change makers whothought that very thing and
realized that, yeah, a betterway to lead or to grow or to
build does exist.

(00:24):
And once they trustedthemselves enough to discover
what's possible, they createdthe foundation for a new era
that's revolutionizing thelandscape of success.
The word ethical refers tothese very moments in time,
because when you commit to beingbetter, the impact will last
for generations to come.

(00:45):
I'm your host, Sarah Caminiti.
Join me to uncover practicalinsights and strategies that
will empower you to be thechange that you seek.
This is ethical growth.
I'm so happy that you're here.
Hey, it's Tuesday.

(01:15):
What does that mean?
We got a new episode.
I actually am delivering ontime.
Welcome to Epochal Growth.
I am so happy that you're here.
A couple of quick housekeepingthings reviews, ratings you can
do this on wherever it is thatyou listen to your podcast.
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If there's things that youreally are loving, I want to be

(01:36):
able to do more of it.
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here at Epochal Growth sharewith us.
So, please, if you don't havetime to listen to the full
episode, I get it.
Life is nuts, but sometimes weneed that little boost of

(02:21):
empowerment in our life, in ourday, and you can find that on
YouTube, so make sure yousubscribe so you can find us.
Now I also want to just take amoment to celebrate someone very
special in my life who foughtfor her value.
Too often we are quick to acceptwhatever monetary number we
receive from our employer, andit is really hard to get the

(02:44):
courage to ask questions anddemand more in a way that is
respectful and transparent andhas opportunity for growth and
definition.
This was a long, long fight anda very, very earned victory.
That should never have beenmore than a quick conversation

(03:05):
to right or wrong, but she stuckwith it.
She knew what she was worth andshe kept fighting and I am so
proud to know her.
Remember that nobody else getsto define your worth, and money
is weird and it makes forawkward conversations, but it
still does not mean that you donot get to ask questions or
develop a plan or strategize orjust learn why.

(03:28):
We all deserve great things.
We all deserve to be paid whatwe're worth.
Having the confidence toapproach those conversations in
a way that you're proud isn'talways easy, so congratulations
to this special person.
So what are we talking abouttoday?
We're talking about reinvention.
Reinvention is very similar toeras.

(03:48):
There's a lot of overlap.
The difference lies inunderstanding the purpose behind
it.
When you're thinking aboutreinvention, you can start
thinking about asking yourselfsome questions.
What are you actually trying toreinvent?
Is this a personal reinvention?
Is this a career reinvention?
Are you moving into a differentfield?
Are you going to school forsomething?

(04:10):
Did you just get a degree?
Are you moving into leadership?
These are all opportunities forreinvention.
However, no one ever talksabout the how.
How do we even start to thinkabout reinvention?
It's essential to focus on thepurpose and be intentional when
you're trying to reinventyourself, because when you're
intentional and you understandthe purpose and you've defined

(04:33):
it, you're able to build thatfoundation for the new era that
you're entering into.
I'm so excited to introduce youto Jaclyn.
Jaclyn is a builder, she is aconnector and through this she
validates what's possible.
Let's be honest aboutreinvention.
This is a very vulnerable thingthat you are entering into.

(04:54):
Even just starting to questionthe definition of what this
reinvention is in your life is avulnerable place to find
yourself in.
You need to intentionally stepinto a place where reinvention
is on the table.
Doing so involves a blend ofrisk and curiosity
self-reflection In the episodethat just aired last week with

(05:16):
Jen South and we briefly touchedon imposter syndrome.
Because of this, I've beencontemplating the concept of
imposter syndrome a lot.
It got me to think aboutshifting our perception of
imposter syndrome, stoppingourselves from thinking it is
this negative thing that is justeating away at our potential

(05:36):
for success.
Instead, we see it asconfirmation that we're capable
of what we fear we're going tofail at.
So I've been having this emailexchange with someone recently.
I don't know what it is aboutthis person, but they have given
me an opportunity to reflect ina way that I don't think that I
have had the space for in years, and he's shared with me

(06:00):
different quotes, and the crazypiece about it is how perfectly
timed these quotes are.
This isn't a person that I seeon a regular basis.
This isn't a person within mycompany.
The conversations are notlinear to what I'm thinking
about at the moment in myregular day to day life, but the
quotes that he does share withme end up connecting to exactly

(06:21):
where I am in that very moment.
So he shared this quote byCharles Bukowski the problem
with the world is that theintelligent people are full of
doubts, while the stupid onesare full of confidence.
Think about that for a second.
Those who are incapable ofreinvention or incapable of
risky, meaningful ethical growth, never talk about imposter

(06:42):
syndrome.
The ones that are capable ofthis, that are worthy of
everything that they are beingasked to do or promoted to or
dedicating time to, those arethe ones that feel the imposter
syndrome.
Jaclyn validated what'spossible as I entered into my

(07:02):
current era of taking up space.
Even before I knew her.
She was the very first personto connect with me who didn't
know me, and she acknowledgedthe golden rule when she sent me
the message on LinkedIn.
I remember exactly where I waswhen I got this request from her
and reading the message, and Ithink I talked about it with my
husband for a week straight.
She validated what's possibleand what happens when you allow

(07:26):
connection into your life.
We need people like Jaclynbefore we even know that we need
them.
She effortlessly validatespossibilities because she has
taken these risks and shesurvived.
Each reinvention has given hermore introspection and purpose,
guiding her into the next era ofgrowth and change.
In this episode, you're going tolearn about the power of

(07:47):
community and how communitysolidifies a brand and a
company's identity.
You're going to learn about howto reinvent yourself and how to
reflect on reinvention in a waythat drives personal growth.
You'll also learn about how tolead a team that's collaborative
but still focuses on thenumbers and the results.
And, finally, we're going totalk about untapped potential

(08:10):
and how to capitalize on thatwithin your career and how to
recognize that it exists insideof you.
Listeners, I am so excited tostart this episode.
This is ethical growth how toapproach career reinvention with
Jaclyn Mullen.
This is ethical growth.
How to approach careerreinvention with Jaclyn Mullen.
You didn't expect it, but, hi,I am like so pumped for this.

Jaclyn Mullen (08:34):
So pumped for this I am too.
Thank you Really.
Thank you so much, and I justappreciate the opportunity.
I think this is a testament tothe power of connecting you know
and us, even though we'reremotely distributed, not, you
know, staying like holdingourselves back from reaching out
to people and forging true,genuine relationships thinking

(09:00):
about how full circle this is.

You were one of the first people to reach out
and connect with me, and youwere the first person ever to
acknowledge the golden rule bitthat I had in my LinkedIn
profile, and it just was likeyou were the start of realizing
how much I've been missing bynot connecting with folks in

(09:23):
this community, because you aremy people, your kindred spirits,
and it's people like you andwhat you did for me that made it
happen.
So thank you.
Oh my gosh.

Sarah, you're making my week.
It's been a little bit of acrazy one, but I'm like, okay, I
was not expecting that.

Really.
No, you really ignitedsomething in me, uh and uh, yeah
, it was empowering, so thankyou oh yeah, no, that's.

That's what we're here to do today, right?
So help others find that samesort of spark, if you will.
The tender, which I didn'trealize.
That's what a tinder is, sarah.
I used to live right by Tinderoffices in West Hollywood and
Tinder literally stands for likethe spark that the two logs
create.

I had never made that connection before.
You're right, we need.
Tinder to flame.
Yeah yeah, good on them.
I mean that was a good namepick, but they needed to do a
better job at connecting thosedots, because that's really good
.

Yeah, yeah, the fun things I will share with you
, the random fun facts that willbe picked up today.

Hey, I am a lover of the random facts
because they make theconversations that much better.
But, yeah, let's do the thingthat I'm terrible at, which is
actually saying let's start thepodcast.

So I hi everybody .
I'm Jaclyn Mullen, I'm head ofmarketing for the Loops AI and
you know I'm here today becauseobviously I'm number one.
Sarah and I connected overLinkedIn and live in different
coasts of the United States andI think us having this
conversation is just thetestament to.

(11:11):
It's really easy in a digitalday and age for us to get very
busy with our lives, especiallyif we're a part of CX.
There's a never ending list ofthings we're trying to
accomplish and do in those dayto day functions and like, yeah,
there's something called ourcustomers.
So I think it's important, youknow, to speak to what's
possible when we step outside ofthat busy hamster wheel and

(11:35):
forge real, true, genuinerelationships.
And the other side of that coin, too, is that I know sometimes
marketers get a bad rap and soanything I can, anything I can
do to debunk not all marketersyou know are the same.
Not all AI is the same.
I'm looking forward to theconversation, sarah, because I

(11:55):
think if we can help people youknow create some cool paradigm
shifts, I'm all here for that.

So so happy that you're here, so, so happy that
you're here here for that, so sohappy that you're here, so so
happy that you're here.
Just a quick little backstoryJaclyn and I have never had a
one-on-one conversation.
I had a call with the Loops andgot to see the awesome stuff
they were doing and thankfully Imean, I got so lucky that she
decided to join the call so wecould finally meet.

(12:21):
But this was our first.
This is our first actual chanceto get to know each other on a
different level and ask thequestions that we've been
wanting to ask each other, noton a chat, and so this is a
special day and I'm reallyexcited for this.
So thank you very much forcoming here.

Yeah, there's been a lot of slacks.
So I would say, Sarah, we areSlack buddies and that's the
beauty of this from Slack toreal chat.

I know it's good .
It's good.
So I think that what I want toknow about the most is I've been
fortunate enough to gatherlittle bits and pieces of your
career journey.
Enough to gather little bitsand pieces of your career
journey, but I'm dying to knowhow you came into where you are
and what happened before.

Yeah, I want to share a quick CliffsNotes
version because we never knowwho's listening.
I went to school for musicbusiness so I thought, yes, I
actually am a singer by tradeloves, you know, grew up, um,
grew up on MTV, you know.
Song and dance were really,really, really key aspects of my

(13:37):
life.
So I share that to say that Ialways did have marketing
running in the background,because MTV showed me how
important it was for artists tobuild a brand and to have
merchandise and I wanted tounderstand the mechanics of that
business.
But I grew up with immigrantgrandparents on my maternal side

(14:02):
that came here with $5 in theirpocket, didn't speak English,
went into the jewelry trade,started two jewelry stores, one
first in Long Island, new York,before I was born, the other in
Vero Beach, florida.
And the reason why I alsomentioned that is because during
my summer breaks as a child Ispent my time in my
grandparents' jewelry store andthat's where I first understood

(14:24):
that like the power ofconnecting with your customer.
So flash forward to you know Igo to junior college first,
which I think is also animportant thing to share, to
break down this whole stigma ofeverybody needing to go to like
a four year school or what haveyou.
I actually moved and uprootedmyself from where I grew up to

(14:45):
go be close to my grandparentsand live in their town and spent
two years of junior collegebecause I knew that that time
with them was very precious.
And then the rest of like once,once, you know, I hit like my
professional career.
I knew that there was like nogoing back.
So I didn't end up in the musicindustry, as you can wager, a
little thing called technology,it seems like occurred overnight

(15:09):
and I graduated and I actuallystarted off working for an HR
tech company which back then,like SaaS, wasn't even around.
And you know they were likelook, you're going to do a
little bit of marketing, you'regoing to definitely do some
sales.
We really need you tounderstand our customers and

(15:29):
that's that's.
That was like the steppingstone for how my career in this
aspect of like content marketing, what we now call in customer
marketing, started.
I would go and talk to ourcustomers and try to understand
what their pain points were andmy sales team would say, hey,
this is what they need and I'mlike that's not what they're
saying.
So the rise of the internet.

(15:52):
You know, I worked for thatcompany for three years.
And then, sarah, it was justsort of like off to the races.
I left where that, where I was,which was in Florida.
I moved out to the West Coast,lived in Los Angeles and all
these platforms were kicking off.
Twitter was kicking off,facebook had just started.
So, little by little, I startedworking in tech and that's how

(16:16):
I got into this industry.
And then, yeah, how I startedat the Loops I could talk about
later or whatever, but I neversaw it coming.

Essentially, oh, that is great.
I'll be honest, Jaclyn, likethat is a pretty common theme,
though, for people that are inthe support industry, that make
it a profession, especially inthe tech space.
I mean, of course, in the techspace, but it is.
But it was the unexpected space.
It was realizing where yourskills are and how you can

(16:51):
create a positive impact withinthe company, but also for the
customer, and how thattranslates to different things.
I mean, it sounds like you werecreating a voice of customer
program in that first place andthat is so necessary, but not
talked about at all at thatpoint in time.

(17:12):
And it's, it's, it's, that's.
This is one of the things that Ilove about these conversations.
It's.
You see, this journey like whenyou're young, when you're
trying to figure your stuff outyou have no idea where life is
going to take you and where itcan go is so cool because we
never would have dreamed thatthis space was possible that we

(17:33):
get to build a career out ofcreating marketing for
supporting customer folksthrough AI and using that for
the good of the customerexperience Like dang, it's so
cool.

Well, the other thing, too, I think that's so
key is you know, I've had to dothis multiple times.
So I think when I was younger,I would have thought, oh, I
would only have to reinventmyself or acquire, like the next
set of skills, maybe once ortwice.
And I think what we're beingshown in today's economy is that
, like again, I came into theloops not having ever worked in

(18:11):
AI before and, as people arehearing, you know there's AI has
its own language, so I very Ihadn't worked with Zendesk or
Intercom before or understood,you know, some of the stuff
under the hood very quickly hadto learn and upskill, and so we
talk about upskilling thiscurrent year as if it's this new
thing.
But I think all of us need toremember that the ability to

(18:35):
reinvent ourselves we have it.
I know that you know there's alot of nuance to you know we
have to pay our bills and youknow a lot of nuance to you know
we have to pay our bills andyou know there's a the job
market's crazy.
But I think what my grandparentsmodeled for me was, you know to
stay open to learning and thatI have to take that initiative,

(18:57):
and almost I always say, like,get comfortable with being
uncomfortable, because theylearned how to speak English and
read English by looking at thewords in a book or watching TV.
Nobody sat down and taught them.
And I think it's the same thingfor what we're seeing happen
today with technology.
Now colleges have programs andcertifications.

(19:19):
I didn't have that back then,and you're right.
Voice of the customer.
I'm laughing at how much Iwould go to my leadership team
back then and I would say thisis what our customers are saying
that they want.
And it was like oh, but we cansave them all this money with HR
and workers compensation.
And I'm like but they careabout trusting us, referring us

(19:40):
to their family members that arealso business owners, so on and
so forth.
Right, like, anyway, it'sreally cool just to remember
that.
You know, we're always probablygoing to be needing reinventing
ourselves in this day and age.

Yeah, it's true.
I think that's such a greatpoint too, because, in support,
it's not like this is somethingyou can get a degree in.
This isn't something that wehave all of this training and
preparation for to be successfulin using data in a way that is
hopeful and purposeful andwanted by other departments.

(20:20):
It's a blind spot.
I mean, we don't have a historyof using these sorts of things.
It's not like we've been taught, it's not like someone sat us
down and said this is what youneed to do.
And so, in order to besuccessful right now, in order
to have an impact and in orderto do more than just put out
fires, you have to just takethat deep breath and remember

(20:43):
your power and your abilitiesand just say screw it, I'm going
to try, I'm going to try and ifI fail, I fail and hopefully I
learn and I'll ask questionsabout it.
But I'm hurting myself to notdo it, I'm hurting the customer
to not do it, I'm hurting myteam to not do it, I'm hurting
the company to not do it, andit's on you.
You've got to.

Yeah, and bringing your unique skills, you
know, like the music piece forme.
You know, there are things thatI use from that foundation
every single day in my day today job.
I may not be singing into amicrophone I obviously bring a
lot of energy to public speakingand presenting but a lot of you

(21:37):
know kind of out of the boxthinking or you know just
different ways of problemsolving or picking up, like
reading a virtual room.
It lights me up, sarah, when Ilook on LinkedIn and I see
support leaders that havestarted their career from a
variety of different ways.
Right, either like I've seenpeople that said, hey, you know,

(21:59):
I worked at Starbucks as abarista and then that was where
I got my customer facingexperience and parlayed that
into getting into a support roleand then moving up into support
leadership.
I've seen people that have amusic background and I'm like,
yes, fellow musicians, my pointin sharing that is I've had to
remember that not to kind oflike become a sheep, you know,

(22:21):
and and to like water myselfdown as I've entered this sector
and I think for support, you'reso right.
People, you know have thesemisconceptions about.
You know what support does andhow essential it is to the
organization and support is veryprocedural to a point.
Right, we have to get thingsdone in a certain amount of time

(22:43):
to ensure that the customer ishaving a great experience.
But I would say to anybodythat's listening go back to what
makes you different.
Go back to like your thumbprintand ask yourself how am I
bringing this into work today?
Right, whether that be anartistic talent or a hobby or a
passion.
And I think that's why thecommunities that we participate

(23:04):
in have such strength, becausewe're not connecting based on
our job titles, we're connectingbased on like interests, and
you know like you and I are bothmoms, right, and so we're like
we get it.

It's so true.
You need to have a place.
You have to have a place whereyou feel like you are able to be
yourself and find people thatare going through similar things
and, uh, and kind of throw outideas together or just
commiserate together.
But you, you're right,everybody comes from so many

(23:38):
different places.
I was a musician too.
I sang in a traveling folk bandfor years.
It's how I met my husband I wassinging backup and his
roommates on his roommates album.
He's a musician and he was insupport, and so it's.
There's a performing aspect toit, though.
I mean, we have to put on ashow in every interaction that

(23:58):
we have, and it makes sense thatyou went into marketing,
because you have to put on ashow and you have to do it in a
way that's that's exciting, andmarketing is a great space for
that, and to do it in a placelike the Loops, which is such an
awesome celebration of support,must be very exciting.

Yeah, I mean with the rise of AI, with to your
point, I think what excites meis how do we help support
leaders, how do we empowersupport leaders to better tell
their story around what they'redoing and the impact that it has
?
And for those that may not beaware, the loops is an AI

(24:45):
platform where you bring in notjust your support data but other
customer data that's reallycritical to be able to look at
and in real time, rather thanrelying on, you know, a data
analyst or extracting all thatinformation.
Have a very clear understandingof what's happening across
customers, agents, issuestrending, so on and so forth.
And so one of the first thingsI did I never knew that I would

(25:08):
work in AI.
I never knew that I would servethe support community.
I came from ed tech and wasactually helping people re-skill
, and these people had worked inrestaurants, hospitality, were
educators and they wanted to getinto SaaS sales the other side
of the house, right, thepre-sales side of the coin.
So I came from that world intothis world of post-sales and now

(25:36):
you've got the customers.
But how do you keep thecustomers happy?
How do you help the customersuncover that time to value right
?
And one of the first things Idid when I was interviewing for
the Loops is I went and I wantedto understand how support
opened doors for people.
What was the career progression?
How many people worked in?

(25:56):
You know, of course, the dataacross the Bureau of Labor
Statistics blends service andsupport together, sarah, right,
but I wanted to understand youknow just how many people work
in the support and role andwhat's the growth trajectory.
Now, this is all pre, you know,2023, when Gen AI became this
huge thing.

(26:17):
But, believe it or not, one ofthe most validating signs to me
was that, you know, I saw thatsupport.
You could have a college degree.
You weren't necessarilyrequired to have a degree and I
was like, yes, this is awesome,because I think that that's too
black and white and thinkingsometimes, right, and then the
numbers were showing that thiswas expected to grow and that

(26:38):
people did get into support andthat they did have clear career
progression.
Now, the more I learned aboutAI, helping people with that on
the operation side right, notthe deflection and all that
chatbot stuff side I was like,okay, this is really cool, it's
a paradigm shift for people, butit's really cool.

So cool, so cool .
And what have you found withthe conversations that you've
been having with others withinthe support industry but also,
I'm sure you've had a lot ofconversation with folks outside
of the support industry that thesupport professionals have to
get buy-in from?
What kind of conversations hasthis opened up?
Because I feel like the loopsignited these conversations, of

(27:25):
the realities of being a supportprofessional, the skills of how
we are actually spending ourtime and analyzing data.
So have you noticed a change?

I've noticed a lot.
So you know, coming from priorto working at that ed tech
company in between that payrollcompany I worked for and then
getting into marketing, I did astint with adult learning and I
actually started teaching adultsmarketing right, as not a
background educatortraditionally speaking, but

(27:57):
doing more what we call likeapprenticeship style hands-on
learning.
And the reason why I bring thatis you start to learn
frameworks around how adultslearn new behaviors, how adults
learn new tools right and how toget that buy-in.
So I had this unique lens thatnot a lot of marketers have from

(28:19):
how do I help people inacquiring new skills, and
particularly doing that in moreof a communal fashion, to like
wanting to understand, you know,what are some of the
limitations or blocks, becausewe all have them when we're
trying to learn something new,which AI is right and how do we,

(28:40):
you know, take that and thenunderstand perhaps, how to
reframe what the technology cando or is capable of?
So I'll start with you know,answering the second question
which you said what's happeningfor those outside of support at
a leadership level, maybe evenwithin, like the customer
success or the productdepartment?

(29:01):
I'm seeing the epiphany of ohmy gosh, cx is a differentiator.
If somebody has a badexperience, they're going to go
write about it on G2 or one ofthese review sites, maybe even
Reddit, which is anonymized, butthey're going to go slam us.
Cx and support are ourcompetitive advantage.

(29:25):
Well, yes, going back to even mygrandparents' business, I knew
that before technology, we'vealways known that customer
support is a huge differentiator.
It's just in a day and age inwhich people look at things very
logically, looking at it fromnumbers, they, and so it might.
It's starting to be a littlebit of it's not too little, too

(29:57):
late yet, but that's why you'regetting all of this push for top
down.
Let's implement AI, because nowwe want to support support, we
want to help support people burnout less right.
We want to help support peopleand we, selfishly, at the top,
want to get these insights onour customers so we can
understand what do they reallytruly think about our business?

(30:21):
That, to me, is very fascinating, because you're talking about
something I think it goes backto the beginning of the
conversation, sarah where, evenat the leadership level, sarah,
where even at the leadershiplevel, you have to stay open, as
a leader, you can get sofocused on the path of you put
money in, you get this muchmoney out, and people aren't

(30:43):
like that, businesses aren'tlike that, pandemics aren't like
that.
So that's a huge paradigm shiftwhere business owners are
really having to understand,breaking out of that set
thinking.
It's always been this way.
It's disrupted, right?
I think at the support side,what I've seen, which is very

(31:05):
valid, is people are a littlebit nervous, and rightfully so.
Support is continuing to bethis area where, again, with
that cut and dry thinking,they're like we know if we can
handle this many tickets andkeep this many customers, then
we'll have this much revenue.

(31:26):
Unfortunately, otherdepartments, like Success, are
getting the brunt of let's cutsuccess, right.
And so I think support is sortof seeing all of these things
happen at once while just tryingto do their job and take on
these new tools, and that's alot to try to take in all at

(31:47):
once, right?
So I don't know, you tell me,is my assessment spot on or?

not, it's so spot on.
It is so spot on.
And I love the connection tosuccess because success has seen
a hit recently.
But I think it's anothersituation where it's just
misunderstood and often it'smaybe poorly laid out from a
leadership standpoint ofcreating an actual space for

(32:13):
them to be successful and nottaking the time to create a
structure that represents theircustomers and their needs.
But it's an easy point to theperson and or the department or
the team and say no, no, you'renot doing it and it's because
they're not taking the time tounderstand the nuances of it and

(32:34):
the opportunities within it.
And support's been feeling thatfor years and those are just so
many different transitions tohave to go through and to
process and the trauma.
I think behind being a supportprofessional, I think there is a
little bit of trauma of therealities of where you are

(32:56):
within the company's ecosystemand the value that you are seen
to have within the space.
And so you start seeing all ofthese conversations happening
and people going towards theshiny things and saying really
tempting, crazy ideas, sayingreally tempting crazy ideas, and

(33:20):
while they will all backfireterribly, support knows it and
support sees it and theyunderstand the implications and
it's scary because they knowthat their voice usually isn't
heard.
That's why I got so excitedabout the loops, because it was
taking AI for good and it wassaying no, you're not supposed
to do it that way.
That's a terrible idea.
This is what you could do withit.

(33:41):
But, Jaclyn, I would love toknow, because you just talked
about so many differentincredible transitions that
people have to go through, likeyou were talking about, going
from sales to support tomarketing, from music.
I mean, those in and of itself,are transitions, but the people
that you've been leading andinteracting with throughout your

(34:01):
career, they're allexperiencing so many different
levels of transitions and thosethat you're seeing in the loops
community crazy transitions.
And so what have you learnedfrom it?
From a leadership perspectiveof you as a human, of of
providing support to theseindividuals?

(34:21):
What have you taken away fromthat?

Yeah, I mean I'll go back to you know, this idea
of what I got from the classroomright.
My learning and development andfacilitation experience really
showed me, sarah, number one asa leader, I have to get I
co-create with my team right.
So I have to get buy-in from myteam and, you know, create a

(34:46):
safe space.
You know.
So I always, I would say, mostof the people that report to me,
you know, know that I do have afriendly, empathetic demeanor.
With that said, I also let themknow I have high standards for
the work we're going to producehere and for what I expect of
you.
Right, I will model for you how, every day, I'm trying to bring

(35:10):
the best version of myself, andwhat I did yesterday is
yesterday.
Today I got to bring bring thebest version of myself, and what
I did yesterday is yesterday.
Today I got to bring the nextbest version of myself.
I will model for you commitment.
I think you know, and this isone of the things that I do see
modeled from my CEO, somya.
You know we are far morecapable of doing, like we can do

(35:31):
, more than what we believeourselves capable of doing, and
you know I've never been one.
So, going back to with that inmind.
You know, depending upon thetype of company you've come from
, depending upon even just ourown unique strengths,
everybody's got different modesof communication, different

(35:52):
modes of operation, differentmodes of peak performance.
Some people want to be workingat night.
I like to work in the morning.
I'm like do not bother me atnight, my brain just doesn't
work that way.
So I think, as a leader, youknow you have to be able to
understand.
Empathy starts with takingthose inputs into consideration.

(36:12):
In the same token, you know youhave goals that the company has
to meet.
So I am a big believer of likewhat gets measured, gets managed
and that's why, again, you know, support is seeing the shift
right With AI it's like, hey,we've always measured these
three things.
Well, those necessarily don'ttranslate to the bigger
overarching picture of thebusiness.

(36:33):
So I think, sarah, you know,traditionally maybe for other
generations leadership andmanagement was like one set way
to operate.
You had to be moreauthoritarian and you know you
had to like, really, you knowcontrol things and you know kind
of make sure you had all theselike checklists and whatnot, not

(36:55):
necessarily admit that you tomake mistakes and I bring to the
fold, you know, in my day today is like look, we're all
human, you know we make mistakes, but do we learn from them?
Do you spot the mistakes beforeI?
Do you know?
Do you hold yourself to a highdegree of performance and

(37:15):
standard?
Do you think outside of the box?
I think that's the other thingwhere I will push my team to
don't come to me.
I'm not going to give you theanswer, and I had to learn that.
My last COO said to me you gotto read this book Multipliers,
because you already have theanswer, based on your experience
, to how things can be done.

(37:36):
Give yourself, give your peoplethe opportunity to do it their
way, even if it's different fromthe way you've done it, and I
hated hearing that, but it wasreally helpful to hear, right,
like fine, and I think, yeah,that when we talk about empathy
in customer support, it's ourcustomers.

(37:56):
Every single day, every singleone of them are going to be
having a different type of day,a different type of experience.
Someone may have just lost aloved one unexpectedly.
Somebody may be so excited andwant to increase their service
line with your business.
You can't treat all of yourcustomers the same.
You can't treat all of thepeople on your team as if
they're the same.

Man, you have just said so many incredible
things that make me so excited.
I could spend seven hourstalking to you about each of
those things, but to start from,one of the first things you
said was something that I havefound myself to be one of the
biggest mindset changes when Iapproached leadership and really

(38:40):
when I had sort of interactionswith the customer too.
It's my job as a leader, or itis my job as a support
professional, to create a safespace, because if you don't
create a safe space, they're notgoing to be telling you the
full story, you're not going tounderstand the context, they're
not going to allow you to haveconversations because they're

(39:03):
scared or they're hesitant orthey're not having the
confidence that they deserve tohave.
And you drop all of the ballswhen those things start
happening and you miss out on somany opportunities.
And then there's churn, andthen there's employee turnover.
That comes with it too, but itsounds like such a soft.

(39:26):
You know, oh, I'm going tocreate a safe space.
Here's a warm blanket type ofthing, but no, it is a
foundational practice that youhave to commit to and show that
you're committed to it everysingle day by doing all of those
things that you're doing,Jaclyn, with just being
transparent about life and workand what's required and giving

(39:50):
them a chance to try and fail.

And be open to feedback.
I mean to be.
So.
What I like about what you'rementioning, it's a warm blanket.
With permission of look, you'regonna learn here how to take
feedback.
I'm going to give you feedback.
That is inevitable, and Ialways preface that warm blanket
and setting the stage with youneed to know my personality

(40:15):
right.
If you give me something, I amgoing to find three or four
things that can be improved uponit.
It's not personal.
You know again that drive forare we putting our best work out
there?
Or, you know, is this work thatwe can?
That's that marketing.
That creative, that artist,right, like this is our art.
Are we putting our autograph onthis?

(40:37):
And if not, we're not going to,you know, swirl too much around
it, but we're going to createanother version very quickly.
And I think it's key that thewarm blanket doesn't mean that
we aren't going to point outareas of opportunity for growth,
or here's what I think you know.
People always talk about thefeedback sandwich or the shit
sandwich.

(40:58):
It's like you know, look, atthe end of the day, we don't
know what people have going onbehind closed doors.
Is it really going to hurt youto freaking?
Have the self-awareness to sayhere are two or three things
that I think you doexceptionally well and here are
two or three areas where I knowthat you can push yourself to do
a little bit more, or what'sblocking you, rather than coming

(41:21):
at somebody with, like that'swhat you learn as a teacher and
instructor.
If you're not doing thiscorrectly, what's happening?
Help me understand I always usethat phrase like help me
understand what's like stoppingthis from moving forward, or
like what's the blocker here?
Help me understand how I canhelp.
And I think those, those, thoseare the keys right, because,

(41:44):
again, the one thing my leaderemulates for me is that it can't
always be roses and sunshine.
You're not going to growbecause you have blind spots if
you can't see where the areas ofopportunity are, and we get
that in data.
If we get that feedback fromour customers, we should be able
to get that feedback from ourleaders too.

Oh man, yes, I think that all of this, I'm
going to end up needing to makelike so many promos and clips of
this because it's just, it's sogood, it's it's.
It is incredibly valuable to beable to have a constructive
conversation with someone, andif every single time you
interact with your team, it isfor a negative reason, then all

(42:30):
of their walls are going to beup, they are going to be
defensive, they are going tostart thinking that everything
they do is undervalued.
If you make it a point and thiswas something that I started
doing and it made such adifference I make it a point to
say one nice thing to eachperson in my team every day.

(42:51):
It doesn't have to be anythingcrazy, but it's just person in
my team every day.
It doesn't have to be anythingcrazy, but it's just.
I see you, I acknowledge you, Iam happy that you're here and
I'm pumped to see what you'redoing.
And then, if something comes up, it takes a little while for
folks to get used to it, myhusband included, but I will go
to them immediately.

(43:12):
Because why stress, why allowyourself to start going down a
spiral?
But I ask why did you do itthis way?
Why did you do this today?
Because you got to know whatpart in the journey did things
fall apart and then you can seeis this documentation, is this

(43:34):
capacity?
Are they just overloaded andstressed?
Is this knowledge gap?
Who knows?
But if you approach it of a,I'm here to make you better and
this is our chance to talk aboutan opportunity to make us as a
team better.
And if you're impacted bysomething, you know there's

(43:54):
going to be other people thatare going to be impacted by it,
then you can have such coolconversations.

And the same goes for our customers.
We would never not want ourcustomers I think that's like
the parallel that I just keepgoing back to with support In
support.
You know, good CX is, let'sunderstand where the block is,
that the customer isexperiencing, and we don't take
that feedback from thempersonally.
You know, we kind of take it athand.

(44:21):
We were very open minded andcurious as to why is this
happening, what can we learnfrom this?
And I think that same approachcan be brought into, you know,
management and even reporting toa manager.
Right, just understand thatmore often than not I've had
some bad managers.
I will say where I was like allright, I disagree with this

(44:45):
assessment.
You know, and I had to come toterms with, not every manager is
going to be, you know, my dreammanager.
Everybody's got their ownjourney that they're on and the
stuff they're working on.
But, like, can you just takesome of that data and that input
and feedback for what it is?
One of the pieces of feedback Igot once oh, you'll hopefully

(45:08):
appreciate this the COO of acompany was like why can't you
talk like an engineer andliterally use that tone with me?
And you know the feedback washey, I, I am a marketer, I am a
performing artist.
I do talk with my hands.
I can, you know, perhaps not beas succinct as need be.

(45:30):
That really pissed me off.
I definitely let that personknow at a latter time that that
was not an appropriate way toaddress me and I, rather than
stewing over it, right, I justwas like I'm not an engineer,
I'm freaking a communicationsperson and I don't need to be an

(45:50):
engineer.
Can I?
Can I learn how to get to bemore directional with my point
or to maybe not hop on aconversation with no coffee in
my system?
Sure, but I don't need tobecome something.
I'm not just because of a pieceof feedback from somebody else
who's just got a differentcommunication style.

(46:12):
There's a book that I'm lookingfor to see if I'd have on my
bookshelf.
It was so helpful to understandexpressive communication, which
, hello, you know, people thatare more drivers and assertive
communicators versus people thatare more um.
There there's like the.
I'll get the name of this bookand share it with you, but until
I understood that, it's not me,it's just different

(46:33):
communication styles, you know Iwould have.
It's not me, it's justdifferent communication styles,
you know I would have probablyread that person the riot act
being the expressive and insteadwas just like okay feedback.
They're this type ofpersonality.
When I interact with them, Ineed to have bullet points and
be super tight.
That's it.

Yep, yes, and that's going to happen.
So much, and I think, as supportprofessionals, as women, we are
in spaces of needing to gooutside of our comfort zone and
share information with othersand communicate with others
within the company, and it'sfrustrating to have that sort of

(47:13):
an interaction with someonewhere, yeah, they've got a
different communication style,but you took this as an
opportunity to try somethingdifferent and navigate it, which
, for the person that you'retalking to but also it's the

(47:34):
other person's responsibility toacknowledge this didn't help me
.
This would help me, and I thinkthat that is something that
support professionals or folksthat are in this CX space
understand on such a high levelthat I'm hoping that, since

(47:54):
these conversations are startingto happen and people are being
a little bit louder about it,you'll start to see that shift,
hoping in other departments,because what a missed
opportunity.
Instead of lashing out and thenjust shutting the door and not
letting you come back and shareinformation because you're not

(48:15):
an engineer and they're nevergoing to appreciate it, why
couldn't you take that as alearning opportunity?
Why couldn't you make thembetter?

Yeah, it's really .
It's really fascinating.
Like you said, you know whatI've seen.
You know in terms of adoptionsto this.
People started putting togetherthese documents.
Everybody's departments androles are so different.
I started seeing this first inthe product marketing world,
right, sarah, where somebodythat I followed on LinkedIn,

(48:46):
who's a very prominent voice inproduct marketing, was like I
put together this document forthings to know about working
with me, and I was like piquedout of curiosity.
I was never going to work withthat person.
But I go, let me go read thisdocument and, for what it's
worth, they just broke down.
Like you know, I can't haveback-to-back Zoom meetings.

(49:06):
You know, that will reallydeplete my energy.
I'm good at like three meetingsa day.
Right, this is the type offeedback I will give you what
feels like very blunt feedback,and so there were a couple of
other things that they includedin that document, but it's
almost like a process, right,that you're documenting for your
customer.
Here's how we handle you knowthis.

(49:27):
You know, here's how we handlethis.
Right, go read our FAQs.
And just reading that documentwas very eyeopening, where I was
like I wonder in the future?
You know, when I have time,cause at a startup, you're
always very busy.
If that might be helpful forthat expectation setting.
Or you know my direct reportsRight, and I've seen a couple of
other leaders model that verything.

(49:49):
Here's what to know aboutworking with me.
I won't sit here and plug yourroles into the product, the
project management tool.
I expect you, as somebody thatwe're hiring, to know once we
discuss your deliverable to that.
You're going to run with it andyou're going to have a timeline
, and I'm not going tomicromanage you.
But when that timeline comes up, I'm going to expect to see the
completed work in a versionthat we can publish and I'm just

(50:11):
like, wow, you're SLAing, youknow your internal operations,
that's pretty darn cool.

Yeah, that is exactly like support
documentation, a process, an SOPfor somebody.
It is a.
It's an opportunity also topoint back to it so that if the
first time you encounter this,the first time you have to have
that rough conversation, you cansay, okay, remember, this is

(50:39):
who I am.
And if we need to talk aboutwhat this means now that you've
actually seen it, that's great.
But I let you know it isdocumented.
We can reference it as much aswe need to.
I'm coming from a good place.
My intentions are clear andthat's why I shared this with

(50:59):
you to remove the opportunityfor miscommunication.

Yeah, and one of the most recent ones that I read
on that note did say thatfeedback is a two-way street.
So I'm here as your leader toget feedback from you on what
I'm doing great, where I'mfailing just as much as I'm here
to provide feedback as well.
And so I thought again goesback to creating that safe space

(51:24):
.
We create that safe space withthe customer.
It's why we're seeing all ofthis disruption.
If you will across supportlandscape disruption.
If you will across supportlandscape.
No, you know customers.
I remember hearing the firsttime I got into this side of the
house where it was like payattention to how many times the
customer has to repeatthemselves when they have an
issue.
And, sure enough, I have anissue and I'm filing a ticket

(51:47):
and I'm uploading thescreenshots and like gathering
all my stuff and spending about20 minutes that I didn't have
and then I freaking get aresponse back.
Can you explain to me whathappened?
And I'm like why did I just doeverything I did, you know?
And so in general, I think youknow we're learning ways to be

(52:08):
more empathetic and tostreamline things so that people
don't feel like there's wastedefforts or there's these like
bait and switches.
My leadership seems so nice andall of a sudden they're reading
me the riot act for you know,presenting information to them
this way, so on and so forth.

But I think what it really boils down to is no
matter the technology, it iscommunication at the end of the
day, yeah, yeah, and boundaries,and I think that in support, we
see that as a requirement to doour job well, and that's why
the documentation exists, that'swhy we have all of those
knowledge base articlesinternally and externally, and

(52:46):
that exists everywhere withinthe company.
That is not just a supportthing.
You have to have clearlydefined when it gets to this, we
need to do this, and when thishappens, we have to do this.
And when you share this, dothis.
If you are asking someone to dosomething, it is your
responsibility to give them thetools that they need to be

(53:07):
successful.
It's what we do with ourcustomers.
Why would we not want to do itwith the people we're investing
in and inviting into our space?

Yeah, yeah.
And again, going back to youknow all those things are there
foundationally.
What can you bring from you andyour unique self right, your
unique talents, hobbies,experience that are going to
make that even much moreimpactful?

Yes and find ways to remind yourself that you
should be proud of what you'veaccomplished.
Reflect and think about whatyou've done and use that as a
driver to make a space withinyour team or within your
community, because you have noidea what's possible unless you

(53:57):
try.
And personally, I've spent mywhole life staying away from
social media, aside from anInstagram account for my kids,
and that's a private one, mostlyit's just for, like, family
members that I always forget toupdate anyway.
But anyways, it's the.
Why would anyone want to listento random things from me?

(54:21):
And that's not even necessarilya negative way to look at it,
it's just a what's the point.
And instead change that to fuckit.
And instead change that to fuckit, fuck it.
I'm just going to share, I'mjust going to say what I think

(54:42):
is valuable to say out loud, andyou'd be so surprised how
quickly things change for youyour career journey, the people
that you meet, the conversationsyou get to have I mean saying
I'm a Golden the conversationsyou get to have.

I mean saying I'm a golden rule advocate brought
me to you and uh, and it'spowerful, yeah, sometimes, the
things that we're doing inservice of other people, we're a
part of that priority list.
You know everything that youwere just describing from my
experience self-doubt, and youknow self-doubt, self-criticism

(55:19):
those are two areas where I'vehad to really work on number one
, acknowledging that they'rethere, running in the back of my
mind, and number two, thatbecause they're there, so
subconsciously, they can hold meback from just trying right,
trying without judgment orwithout worry of what others
might think about me, andstaying open to learning.

(55:42):
So I'm glad that you model that.
I feel like ever since you'veput yourself out there, it's
like I mean, sarah, I'm going toflip the script on you, like
tell us you're in the elevatemasterclass, right?
You're doing this podcast now.
Like what else has happenedsince you decided to kind of
quell that self-criticism orthat self-doubt?

Yeah, Jaclyn, it's been nuts.
It has been the most bonkers.
I've been using that word somuch and I've never used it in
my entire life, and it is theonly thing that I can think of
to describe these past fewmonths.
It has literally been threemonths and within that time I
have found myself the time andthe permission to reflect on my

(56:39):
skills and be proud of what I'vedone and gotten my head out of
the weeds to take a step back.
And also I have spent the lastsix years either trying to get
pregnant, being pregnant,recovering from pregnancy,
starting the IVF journey allover again.

(56:59):
You know, like it is a, it is adifferent headspace when that
is where you are like you.
That is your purpose right now.
Right now, and while thankfully, like my career, stuff was
outside of that, I didn't havethe space or the capacity to
think about integrating into thecommunity.

(57:21):
And now that I finished thatphase of my life and felt proud
of that phase of my life andproud that it was, I knew it was
done and it was time for me tobe me and see what was possible.
It's just been wild.
I mean this podcast I've gotsome cool stuff cooking with
Neil.

(57:41):
Outside of this, it's got themasterclasses.
I'm working with Sarah Hatteron some other stuff.
I mean, it's just I'm askingquestions.
Is what it comes down to?
I'm asking questions, I'mgiving myself time.
I'm having a.
Is what it comes down to?
I'm asking questions, I'mgiving myself time, I'm having a
lot of conversations and it's abummer that it took me this
long.
But I think that it took methis long for a reason, so that

(58:03):
I can really appreciate it.

And it's part of that.
You're just it's.
People say.
You know whether the analogy isit's just the next chapter or
you know we go back to this ideaof we're always going to be
reinventing ourselves.
This is the epitome of growth.
Growth doesn't just happen whenwe tackle one area of our life.
I remember one time we'll try toget for everybody that's

(58:29):
listening like a printout, but Ito like a session for women in
business where they were likehow balanced is your life?
I'm like my life is balanced.
You know, I go to yoga, I workfor myself.
Well then, sarah, they gave youthis wheel of life and within
that wheel it was almost likelittle pieces of a pie friends,
family, relationship, you knowfinance and then there was like

(58:52):
a one through five rating andyou had to like fill in and
circle right within that wheel.
And so I remember like onething was like a two, if I was
being honest with myself.
One thing was like a four.
Well, lo and behold, you have toconnect the dots and, rather in
an ideal scenario, your wheelbecomes a wheel.
Mine was like a giant diamondand it just gave me the

(59:14):
opportunity to say to see, oh,okay, there's some areas in my
life where I would have neverconsciously friendships, family,
you know um stopping to slowdown and be mindful and present
for my family.
It wasn't until I saw thatwheel that I realized how
engrossed I was in work, that Iwas able to kind of create a

(59:38):
next chapter, if you will.
So we're not static, you know,and it's beautiful to see your
reinvention.
Thank you very much.

It's been such a cool time totalk to people that really are
trying to make a difference inthe world and they're doing it
by planting seeds in theirspaces and acknowledging their
faults and trying to be better.
And it's working.
It really is working.
There's a sea of change and youare a huge part of that and you

(01:00:10):
have done such an incrediblejob of promoting women and CX
and opportunities, and I hopethat you give yourself that time
for reflection too, because youshould.
You're a mom too.
I mean it's not like.
I mean your wheel is packedfull and you're still making
change.

Jaclyn Mullen (01:00:31):
Yeah, I needed to hear that today, going back,
we're our own worst critics.
So, yeah, no, this has beengreat, sarah Jaclyn this has
been an honor.

Sarah Caminiti (01:00:41):
Like truly, thank you for your time, and I
know this won't be the lastconversation, though, so get
ready world.

Jaclyn Mullen (01:00:49):
Yeah, we'll be slashing in between and, as if
anything's evidenced here, I'mvery definitely very busy, but
I'm never too busy to answer aLinkedIn connection request or
learn a fun fact about somebodyand hi, neil.
Neil and I are also Slackbuddies and LinkedIn friends,
and so it's just.
You know, you guys are both atrue representation of like the

(01:01:11):
whole like, attract, like.
So I love it.

Sarah Caminiti (01:01:15):
Thank you.
Well, I'll let you get back toyour crazy wednesday, but uh,
thank you for this and uh, yeah,I hope you have a great day.
You've just listened to ethicalgrowth how to approach career
reinvention and I would love toknow if you are feeling
empowered to reinvent yourselfand what reinvention means to

(01:01:37):
you and how it's impacted yourcareer journey.
Did you know that you can textme?
You can text me by going toEpochal and clicking on the text
button within the episode link.
I want to know what you'rethinking.
I want to hear from you.
I also want to know if you haveany questions that you want me
to address while we're on theshow.

(01:01:58):
I would love to have a Q&Asection at the end of each
episode, but I can't do thatwithout you, so please ask me
questions.
Thank you so much for spendingthis time with us and for being
open to change.
We can't wait around to seechange happen and for being open
to change.
We can't wait around to seechange happen when you feel it
in yourself that a better wayexists.

(01:02:18):
You owe it to yourself and tothose around you to try, because
great things happen when you do.
Thank you again to Buzzsprout.
Thank you to Elevate CX forbuilding this incredible
community that connects me topeople like Jaclyn.
Did you know that Elevate CXhas events that empower CX
professionals to be the leadersthat they want to be?
The next one is in September.

(01:02:39):
It's in Denver.
Make sure that you're gettingyour tickets.
We also have one on November8th in the UK.
I'm going to be speaking atthat.
It's in London.
It's one day.
Please, if you're feeling likeyou want to go and travel across
an ocean with me to talk aboutleadership and customer
experience, come to London onNovember 8th.

(01:03:00):
If you live in Europe and ifyou live in the UK, please come
to London on November 8th.
Remember that small thingsignite change.
You're capable of more than youeven realize.
Thank you again for spendingtime with me.
Thank you to Jaclyn Mullen fortrusting me on this journey and
for gifting me with your time.

(01:03:21):
I'm Sarah Caminiti.
Have a great day.

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