285: Listen to What You Say to Others About Your Job

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Do You Love Your Job or Just Like It? Your Career Narrative Shapes Your Satisfaction

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself: Do I truly love my job, or do I just like the people I work with? In this insightful episode, we explore what it really means to feel fulfilled in your career—and why the stories you tell yourself about your job matter more than you think.

Inspired by a powerful lesson from Simon Sinek, we break down the key differences between loving your work and simply liking it. From job tasks and company culture to compensation and workplace relationships, we uncover the factors contributing to long-term job satisfaction.

I’ll also share a personal story about returning to work after cataract surgery, revealing the deep joy I find in coaching mid-career professionals toward meaningful careers. Plus, you’ll gain practical strategies for navigating workplace conversations with intention, ensuring you communicate your job satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) in a way that benefits your career.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✅ How to assess whether you love your job or just like aspects of it

✅ The power of your internal career narrative and how it affects job satisfaction
✅ A mindful communication strategy for workplace conversations: “Do you need to be heard, helped, or hugged?”
✅ The role of career coaching in finding fulfillment—whether it’s in your current role or a new opportunity
✅ Signs it may be time to pivot in your career and how to navigate change proactively.

If you’re a mid-career professional looking to gain clarity, fulfillment, and career direction, this episode is a must-listen!

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Episode Transcript

John Neral (00:00):
As one of my favorite coaches used to tell me
, be careful what you tellyourself, because it may just be
true.
Thank you, fred Borden.
Whether you are networking,interviewing or talking to your
friends or loved ones about yourjob and where you work, the
stories you tell about yourcareer and job indicate how much

(00:21):
you love or, dare I say, hateyour job.
Stay tuned.
In this episode, I will sharesome powerful coaching questions
you can ask yourself to clarifythose career stories you're
telling and determine what mightbe next as you build your
mid-career GPS.
Let's get started.

(00:42):
Hello, my friends, this is theMidCareer GPS podcast and I'm
your host, John Neral.
I help mid-career professionalslike you find a job they love
or love the job they have, usingmy proven four-step formula.

(01:06):
If you are new to the podcast,I want to welcome you.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Also, I want to let everybodyknow that I have several free
resources that are located on mywebsite at https://johnneral.
com.
Those include things like theMid-Career Job Seekers Checklist
that I love when people goahead and download, because I

(01:27):
know it's helping so many people.
You can also find some otherfree resources and guides that
are there, including my freetwice-weekly Leadership and
Career Newsletter.
I certainly welcome you to be apart of that as well.
You can find all of that on mywebsite at https://johnneral.
com as well.

(01:51):
This episode rings very true andvery strongly for me because,
as you just heard, I helpmid-career professionals find a
job they love or love the jobthey have, and it's important
for me to call out here that I'mnot helping mid-career
professionals find a job theylike.
We all have jobs that we like.
We've probably been in severaljobs where we've liked, but the

(02:11):
sweet spot here is finding thejob you love.
And I'm inspired in thisepisode by a clip I recently
found by Simon Sinek, who is theauthor of great books such as
Start With why.
But he talks about anexperience he had with a young
man named Noah, who made him acup of coffee at the Four

(02:32):
Seasons Hotel, and when he askedNoah whether or not or what he
liked about his job, noahimmediately responded that he
loved his job.
Noah immediately responded thathe loved his job, and Simon
goes on to tell the story abouthow Noah gave such specific
examples, about how hismanagement and leadership

(02:55):
checked in with him to see whatelse he needed to do his job
better, and that Noah alsoworked at another hotel and all
of his leadership and managementover there did was wait to
catch him doing something wrong.
One of the things I love aboutthis video, and what Simon
shares, is that love is anemotion.

(03:17):
It's a different level ofemotion when we hear people say
that they love what they'redoing or they love their job,
and I really want you to leaninto that as you listen to this
episode, because loving your jobis at a completely different
level and I also want to offeryou that it is very different

(03:40):
than simply loving the peopleyou work with.
So let's break down each sideof the aisle here.
So, if you love your job, whatI want you to figure out here is
what exactly is it you loveabout it?
Is it the kind of work you aredoing?
Is it about the organizationitself?
It is about how you'recompensated and how much money

(04:02):
you're being paid.
How much is it about the peoplewhom you work with day in and
day out?
When we hear people say, or wesay ourselves, that we love our
job, what I want to know is whatis it about your job that you
love so much.
That excites you?
Where are you challenged?

(04:24):
What are you motivated by?
Where is this job setting youup for whatever is next?
Because, in the coachingconversations I have with my
clients, is all about diggingmore deeply into what it is that
lights them up about the workthey're doing day in and day out

(04:46):
.
It's the difference betweenwaking up in the morning and
saying I have to go to workversus I get to go to work.
So a few weeks ago I hadcataract surgery.
It was totally expected andplanned and was very grateful to
get that done.

(05:06):
But I spent a week taking iteasy, detaching from work, not
doing a whole lot, becauseyou're not supposed to do
certain things after cataractsurgery and admittedly, it was a
little hard for me.
Okay.
And when I went back to workthat following Monday, I was so

(05:26):
excited to get to my desk.
In fact I got more done thatday than I feel like I had
gotten done on any other day inthe past two weeks.
I was just cruising throughthings and getting them done.
Because I was excited to getthem done, because for me and
why I love my work so much isthat it is about something

(05:51):
bigger than myself.
It's about helping all of you,as mid-career professionals,
figure out whatever's going tobe next, because I want you to
experience the same level if notmore happiness and satisfaction
that you have with your job.
So when you think about the jobyou love, one of the reasons

(06:12):
may be because you love thepeople you get to work with and
we need to talk about that for amoment, because the people are
great.
They're the people with whomwe're in the trenches day in and
day out.
They're our comfort when we gograb a cup of coffee or we go
out to lunch or somethinghappens at work, and we

(06:35):
immediately go to them becausewe want to share that with them
on some level, okay, or we'relooking for them for that kind
of support and for us to bethere for them as well.
But when we think about lovingthe job, I want to offer you
that the people are not enoughto keep you there.

(06:58):
They're enough to keep youthere for a certain period of
time, but they are not thebe-all and end-all, because what
happens?
At some point someone's goingto get an opportunity or someone
may be let go, and now you'releft, and at that point you may

(07:21):
be kicking yourself wonderingwhy didn't I get out of here
sooner?
I don't mean this to sound likeit's about being selfish, but
it is about you being 100%responsible for your career as
you progress through thismid-career journey and you start
eyeing retirement.
That is a very selfish decisionand one one which, if we are

(07:46):
blessed enough, we all get tomake.
You get to decide when it'syour turn to exit, and, as much
as you love the people you workwith, it is also about going.
I'm done.
Time for me to retire.
We have to acknowledge that.
Think about how many times youhave or you know someone who has

(08:11):
stayed in a job longer thanexpected because they love the
people they worked with anddidn't want to leave them.
Fair enough to say we eitherhave been ourselves or we know

(08:32):
someone who has been guilty ofthat, and there is nothing wrong
in that, because for a lot ofus it's a coping mechanism, it's
a support system that we haveand it's what gets us through.
So that can absolutely be apart about loving your job.
But think about when you'renetworking or interviewing and
people say to you wow, why haveyou stayed in that organization

(08:54):
for eight years, or why have youbeen with that organization for
12 years?
And your answer back is well, Ireally love the people I work
with day in and day out.
The immediate question thathiring manager is going to have
is going to be well then, whatchanged?
What changed that now you'releaving because you don't love

(09:16):
the people you're working withor they left before you?
I don't think that's thestrongest answer in the book for
you to give, but that isdependent on your circumstance
and situation.
So what happens if you don'tlike your job or, at worst case
scenario, hate your job?
Well, here we want to know why.
Why are you not loving your job?

(09:40):
What is it about the job youdon't enjoy?
Is it the work?
Is it the stress level, thetoxicity, the clients?
Is there someone with whom youare working with day in and day
out that absolutely bugs theliving daylights out of you?
You don't like your boss, youdon't like your manager, you

(10:03):
don't like your colleague, youdon't like the project manager.
If you don't like all of them,that's another story, right?
So you have to think about whois it that you don't like on the
job and how is thatcontributing to why you are not
loving your job right now.
This is an opportunity for youto get very clear and very

(10:24):
granular about what it isexactly about the job you hate
or you don't like, because thefollow-up question to that is
when might it get better?
And if you find yourselfanswering that question with
things like, well, I think myboss is going to get promoted

(10:46):
and so when they do, I'll get anew boss and that'll make my
life better Really, or thequestion may be once I get out
from underneath this project,everything's going to be fine,
ask yourself, is that true?
A dear friend and mentor ofmine told me on one of my jobs

(11:10):
and he said if you break downyour time here into thirds, a
third of the time you're goingto love it, a third of the time
you're going to hate it and athird of the time you're going
to be right in the middle.
If the third of the time in themiddle is really, really good
for you, you'll have a greatcareer here.
We can't be Pollyanna orelitist here in thinking that

(11:35):
everything about a job is goingto be wonderful, because it's
not, and especially as we getready to move in toward the last
month of 2025, the firstquarter of 2025, it does feel
like this year has taken forever, though.
Right, but as we wrap upFebruary and we start thinking
about okay, we're going to getthrough quarter one, what do you

(11:57):
want?
What's in your control?
Because if you're looking atyour job and you're not seeing a
clear pathway forward as to howor when it is going to get
better, that may very well be anindication for you to see if
making a move, be it internallyor externally, is the best move

(12:19):
for you.
Now, with all of this being said, I have a caveat, and the
caveat here is be careful whatyou are saying and who you are
saying it to.
At work, we all have thattrusted colleague, that bestie,

(12:41):
if you will, that we confide inand we talk with, and only you
can truly know how much youthoroughly trust that friendship
, that relationship, thatdynamic.
But there are ears andsometimes and I have seen this

(13:02):
happen where leadership orsomeone will go up to that
trusted colleague and say, hey,is John really happy?
You know, is there anythingreally bugging John right now?
And your trusted colleague maywant to help and they may say
something that you never wantedthem to know that other person

(13:22):
and all of a sudden.
Now you're in a spot that youdidn't really envision being in.
So be careful with those things.
Be careful how much you divulgeor how much you share.
You can always make agreements,be like look, this is just
between us and if I find outyou're saying something, we're

(13:43):
going to have an issue.
Okay.
But when you're outside of workand you're talking with your
spouse, your loved one, yourfamily, your friends, do you
find yourself being morenegative than usual?
Are you unloading, venting,complaining, whining, whatever

(14:06):
that might be and I know thoseare all judgment words, but this
is the chance for you to reallythink about what it is you're
saying and are you listeningreally carefully to what you are
saying to other people?
Because when we start listeningto those conversations, the
question I would ask here wouldbe are you being more proactive?

(14:31):
Are you just complaining?
How are you showing up forthose conversations, and are
those conversations trulyhelpful?
So a coach I had previouslyworked with shared with me one
time that whenever there wassomething difficult that his

(14:55):
spouse would come and talk tohim about, that, he would always
ask them and say do you need meto hear you, do you need me to
help you or do you need me tohug?
You Was hear, help or hug, andwhen his spouse responded with
what they needed, he knew how toshow up for them.

(15:17):
And so I offer that to you aswe wrap up this episode, because
prefacing a conversation with Ijust need you to hear me right
now can take a lot of pressureoff the person listening or

(15:40):
engaging with you in thatconversation.
We know that guys love to solveproblems, right, like it is
part of our trait, right?
We want to fix the problem,move on to something else.
That may not always be helpful.
It can also put a lot ofpressure on someone.
Where you come to them andthey're like I don't really know

(16:01):
how to help you right now, thething they may need most is for
you just to listen, so you canshow up and set the ground rule
for the conversation by simplysaying I need to vent, I just
need you to listen, I need youto hear me on this, or I've got
a problem, I could really useyour help with this.
Or you say to that significantother it was just a really bad

(16:24):
day.
Can I just have a hug?
Whatever that may be, but listento how you are talking about
your job and as you listen toyourself talk about your job,
you will be able to figure outdo you love it or do you hate it
, or are you somewhere inbetween across dozens of

(16:47):
organizations and worked withpeople at so many different
levels and in differentcircumstances within their
career.
One of the things I truly loveabout my job is helping them

(17:10):
have the clarity they need tomake a decision.
In some cases the people I workwith they actively go out and
pursue and find a new job.
Others realize that staying inthat organization is probably
the best move for them, and sowe work on what it means for
them to love the job wherethey're at and love the job they
have.
But it's one of the mostpowerful things about career

(17:35):
coaching is helping my clientsget the clarity they need to
make the decision as they moveforward.
And whatever that is for youwhether you're looking for a new
job or you are comfortablewhere you are there is always a
step forward Doesn't necessarilyhave to be a promotion.
That step forward may simply benothing more than I just need

(17:58):
to manage my day a whole lotbetter.
Whatever that is, or I need tomanage this relationship I have
with my leadership a little bitdifferently.
Whatever that may be, but thatis a key component to building
your mid-career GPS, becausewhen you figure those things out
, you will absolutely find waysto love the job you have or find

(18:23):
that job you love.
I am honored you have spent thistime with me.
If you enjoyed this episode,kindly do me a favor and copy
this link and share it withsomebody you know who would
benefit from listening.
And my friends remember this.
You will build your mid-careerGPS one mile or one step at a
time, and how you show upmatters.

(18:45):
Make it a great rest of the day.
I'll be back with you next week, take care.
Thank you for listening to theMid-Career GPS Podcast.
Make sure to follow on yourfavorite listening platform and,
if you have a moment, I'd loveto hear your comments on Apple
podcasts.
Visit johnnerrellcom for moreinformation about how I can help

(19:07):
you build your mid-career GPSor how I can help you and your
organization with your nextworkshop or public speaking
event.
Don't forget to connect with meon LinkedIn and follow me on
social at John Darrell Coaching.
I look forward to being backwith you next week.
Until then, take care andremember how we show up matters,

(19:28):
thank you,