March 22, 2025 • 34 mins
Are you feeling trapped in a situation you can't seem to escape? Whether it's a dysfunctional workplace, a relationship pattern, or a personal habit, the psychological phenomenon of learned helplessness might be the invisible force holding you back.
Drawing from Dr. Seligman's groundbreaking research at the University of Pennsylvania, this episode explores how we develop mental frameworks that convince us negative situations are permanent, pervasive, and personal. These three psychological components create powerful thought prisons that keep us stuck in suboptimal circumstances despite having the ability to change them.
From my 30 years of corporate experience, I've witnessed how learned helplessness manifests in organizations through broken processes, dysfunctional relationships, and resistance to change. As a leader, recognizing these patterns is your responsibility—especially in today's rapidly evolving business landscape where organizations clinging to outdated ways of working will inevitably fall behind.
But this concept extends far beyond our careers. Through coaching examples, I share how personal narratives like "I'm always the girl in the bad relationship" or "I can never manage money" become self-fulfilling prophecies that limit our lives. The good news? These narratives can be rewritten at any age.
The antidote, "learned optimism," begins not by blowing up your external circumstances but by changing your self-concept from the inside out. By focusing on who you want to be rather than who you've always been, you create micro-changes that ripple outward, gradually transforming both your internal landscape and external reality.
Ready to break free from learned helplessness and cultivate a more optimistic, possibility-filled perspective? Join my Next Level coaching program at thepurposefulcareer.com/next-level, where we'll apply these concepts to transform your career and life.
Follow us on Instagram @thepurposefulcareer.
Learn more about Next Level, our monthly membership at https://www.thepurposefulcareer.com/nextlevel.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Purposeful Career Podcast,
episode number 224.
I'm Carla Hudson, brandstrategist, entrepreneur and
life coach.
Whether you're on the corporateor entrepreneur track, or maybe
both, decades of experience hastaught me that creating success
happens from the inside out.
(00:21):
It's about having the clarity,self-confidence and unstoppable
belief to go after and geteverything you want.
If you'll come with me, I'llshow you how Well.
Hello, my friend.
I hope you had an amazing week.
(00:42):
Today we're going to talk aboutlearned helplessness, and that
is a very interesting topic, onethat applies to both your
career and your personal life,so I'm going to put it in both
contexts in this episode.
I think it's super, superinteresting because, for me, I
have definitely observed in my30-year corporate career there
(01:06):
are some cultures that are stuckcultures.
Right, they're just notcultures that move forward.
They're not cultures thateasily transform themselves.
They're not cultures that aresort of open to reinvention and
change.
They pushed hard against it,even though lots of things are
broken.
(01:26):
Not every company is like that,but I have been in some that
are.
You may have as well, butthere's also a component of this
that impacts, or can impact,our personal life.
We can have learnedhelplessness in our life and we
get stuck in situations orrelationships or financial
(01:48):
situations, whatever it is,where we can feel like there's
just no way out, you know, andwe tell ourselves that we just
have to kind of live with it andlearn how to deal with it.
So I wanted to explore thetopic on this week's episode,
and in the episode I'll give youseveral examples, some from my
(02:08):
life, some from a couple ofclients that I'm coaching, and
I'll also just share with youthe perspectives of the
University of Pennsylvania,which has a practice area in
positive psychology, and I thinkthey're the authors of this
learned helplessness theory.
Super interesting, it's good toknow.
(02:28):
So when I'm walking you throughthis, I really do encourage you
to look at it through the lensof your own experiences, whether
that be on the personal side orthe corporate, business side,
and I'll give you some tools ifyou're a leader, and I'll give
you some tools if you're aleader ways to think about it
(02:49):
and perspectives on how tonotice it and maybe how to be a
catalyst for change in anorganization that might find
change a more challengingproposition.
So, with that being said, Ihope you enjoy this episode on
learned helplessness.
This week we're going to talkabout changing perspective and
(03:12):
midlife, and to illustrate this,I want to talk about it in both
ways.
I want to talk about it throughthe lens of career, of course,
because that's primarily what wetalk about on this podcast, but
we also talk about the wholeperson.
So I want to talk about thisconcept of perspective through
the lens of something that theyteach at the University of
(03:35):
Pennsylvania.
It's called learnedhelplessness, and I think it's
really valuable.
This is something that DrSeligman pioneered in the 70s at
the University of Pennsylvania,and he actually founded the
Positive Psychology Center atUPenn, and when I went through
the certification, this reallyresonated with me.
(03:57):
I instantly saw through thelens of myself as a leader of
teams and functions in my pastcareer as well as in my own life
.
I thought, oh my goodness, Isee how this is a factor, and so
I want to talk about what is it, and I want to share his view
(04:18):
of the things that make uplearned helplessness.
And I want you to challengeyourself, as I'm talking about
some of this, to look at yourown life the way I did when I
first heard it.
I think we all have it to somedegree.
Think about your corporate andpersonal life and look for how
learned helplessness might beshowing up in you.
(04:38):
So let's talk first about whatis it Learned?
Helplessness is when a person isunable to find resolutions to
difficult situations.
Even when a solution is there,even when it's accessible, they
just don't see it, don't act onit and they stay in this
(05:02):
suboptimal situation thatusually they don't want to be in
right.
So we remain passive innegative situations, despite our
ability to change or removeourselves from the situation.
Now, this is super important.
Let's put it through the careerlens first.
(05:23):
If you are an organizationalleader whether you lead a team,
or whether you are a functionallead or a company lead this is
incredibly important because,like if you look at my own
career path, it's been somewhatnontraditional.
As I got into the specialty ofbrand Brand, especially in the
(05:44):
2000s to 2010s, it was a veryhighly sought after.
It still is, but those timeperiods were the age of brand
and they were always looking fortalent, and so I looked at my
own career.
I would say this is theopposite of learned helplessness
.
I looked at my own career asbeing up to me.
This is a good way to look atthe antidote to learned
(06:08):
helplessness.
I looked at it as it's up to meto have the career I want.
No one's going to do that forme.
I'm not going to stay with acompany for 30 years and try to
sell them on what a great personI am If I'm not getting the
opportunities that I want, if Ican't fully optimize, if I can't
fully bring my skill set to anorganization.
It's kind of the way I lookedat it when a headhunter would
(06:30):
call and they would talk to me.
A recruiter would talk to meabout a potentially great
situation where I could go inand lead a team and drive change
and make a difference If itmade sense, and I would put it
through the specific filter thatI won't really talk about now.
But if it made sense, I did it.
I have a series of moves.
Sometimes I stayed three years,sometimes five, sometimes two.
(06:52):
It depended on who called nextand what I decided to do.
And because of that my point isI think that is a very powerful
way of looking at your owncareer.
I experienced many situationswhere I was dropped in at a
fairly senior level and was ableto see the functioning of
(07:14):
different organizations, andmany organizations have learned
helplessness.
Sometimes it's just within ateam, sometimes it's just within
a function, sometimes it's justwithin a team, sometimes it's
just within a function andsometimes, in general, it's the
entire organization.
But what I mean by that is thatthere are things that are
broken either definition ofroles, you know, within and
(07:38):
across teams, ill-defined orbroken processes between
functions and brokenrelationships, usually at the
top, across functions, butsometimes within teams.
Those are ways of being thatthe organization has.
One of my big values in mycorporate career is that when
(08:02):
you're responsible for a team ora function, it is 100% your
responsibility to stop thelearned helplessness and to
raise awareness of where thingsare broken and to be the one
that's there first, withstarting to figure out how to
(08:24):
get a new way of beingestablished in the organization.
Now, this is not easy to do.
It's emotionally exhausting,having done it many times and to
lead that because you've got todo it at every level.
You've got to first talk toyour peers across other
functions who interact with you.
You've got to get them alignedon a different way of being, and
(08:48):
they may not be open to that.
That's tough, right.
Even just as tough isconvincing your team.
It's possible for things tochange and to have the courage
to come with you as you'reshaping the new way of being.
And it's just like anything inlife as a leader, as you drive
(09:10):
out that change within your teamand you're showing up
differently and things areoptimizing and work's getting
done faster, it sort of forcesthe entire organization to start
doing their own optimization,because it shines a light on
what's really broken.
Until there's an organizationalleader willing to do that,
(09:33):
nothing changes.
Everything stays broken.
To organizational leaders,functional leaders, ceos,
c-suite, it is 100% yourresponsibility to make sure that
the learned helplessness inyour organizations stops
permanently.
There are too many forces inthe outside world.
(09:54):
It is not 1980, 1990.
It's not even 2000s anymore orthe 2010s.
We are now in an era wherechange is quantum and there are
too many things.
I mean, just look at we've gonefrom talking about AI like
artificial intelligence, as anabstract thing that'll happen in
(10:14):
the future, to now there'sthese high functioning chat bots
and things chat, gbt chat, gbt4, like all kinds of things
little apps now that arepowerful and quite good.
They're already changing howstudents learn, how students
(10:36):
research, how organizationsmarketing departments are
expanding their own ideationcapabilities by leveraging some
of these things.
It is quickly going to changeeverything.
That's just one littlecomponent of what's changing.
So I feel like we can't staystuck in old ways of being, and
(10:57):
I believe that organizationsthat don't find ways to break
the learned helplessness withintheir own organizations or teams
or whatever, are going to beincreasingly left behind at a
fast pace.
I truly, 100% believe it and Ibelieve that, while it can be
difficult to be the one thatraises your hand first questions
(11:21):
, established ways of beingquestions, the status quo, power
structures it doesn'tnecessarily earn you friends,
but all that will fall to theside as you start to sell it in,
as you approach it in a waythat's not threatening, as you
keep the olive branch extendedto other organizations around
(11:42):
you.
I believe you can galvanizechange within an organization
and completely reinvent.
I've done it a lot of times.
I haven't always been in a rolethat allowed me to do it, I
wasn't always high enough to doit, but in many organizations
the teams that I worked forwould tell you how they function
when I came in and how theyfunction and thought about their
roles when I left werecompletely different, because we
(12:06):
started to question everything.
We started to question thelearned helplessness, the
established ways of being thatweren't working, and found new
ways that did work.
That's how you optimize anddrive change in your leadership
role.
So that's to me, the antidoteto the learned helplessness, the
stuckness, the brokenness of anorganization is for someone to
(12:29):
come in and say I'm going tostart questioning all of the
ways of being.
But I want to talk to you abouthow this shows up in our
personal life, because it isvery much something that isn't
just showing up in our career.
You definitely can see it inorganizations and with people in
your career, but also in yourpersonal life.
Dr Seligman says that there arereally three things that make
(12:55):
up learned helplessness.
So if you want to double clickinto the concept, the three
things are that we have a senseof permanence about the problem,
that there's a sense ofpervasiveness about the problem
and that we make it personal.
So I want to talk about each ofthose in a minute, because
that's really what is underneathfeeling stuck, whether you're
(13:21):
in an organization or whetheryou're talking about something
in your personal life.
So this feeling that we believethat it's permanent.
He said that when we look atour life or career or whatever
through a lens where we believethings are permanent.
It is the belief that thisnegative thing, whatever it is,
(13:42):
and their causes of the negativething are always going to be
there, that it's never not goingto be the way things are so
like, for example, I'm coachingsomeone right now and we're
talking about her problems orher challenges.
She's in the tech sector andshe kind of feels like she's
like in her mid to late thirtiesand she's got this way of being
(14:04):
in her career and she'sstarting to recognize that she
needs to change some thingsabout how she shows up.
The last couple of sessions shestarted to connect the dots out
on well, this is the way I amand this is how I show up and,
as a result, this is how mycareer is going.
She's extrapolating that outnow into oh and, by the way,
(14:25):
this is why my relationships arealways a hot mess, because I'm
always the girl with the bad guyor the wrong guy right.
So she's got this narrative onwho she is in relationships, how
she chooses partners and howshe shows up within those
relationships.
That may not be the best forher and she believes that it'll
never not be that way.
She looks at her friends' livesand they're starting to choose
(14:50):
their long-term partner.
They're starting to makedecisions around children or
houses, making their life whatthey want long-term.
And she feels stuck in hercollege years and it feels like
she has not progressed.
And it's because she has thisview of herself and her
relationship choices wherethere's this sense of permanence
(15:11):
around something that she knowslike on one level is not
optimal, but she doesn't feelempowered to change it, right?
So that's what I mean bypermanence is that you believe
that there's these things inyour career or your life that
aren't the way you want, but youbelieve that, for whatever
reason, you're powerless tochange them.
(15:33):
They're happening to you andyour response to it is what it
is and that dance is never goingto change, right?
So that's permanence.
Second thing is pervasiveness.
We can look at a problem in ourcareer life it's kind of what
my client was doing and you canlook at it as the problem is
(15:53):
everywhere.
It's not just one part of mylife, it's in my whole life.
Everything is terrible.
You know, I failed at thisthing, so I'm always going to be
a failure at things like that.
So I'm not going to try anymore, like it's a very limiting way
of being, because it takessomething that might've been
true about one part of your lifeor one situation and it
(16:17):
extrapolates it out into otherthings and you have this sense
of looming negativity or doom.
It's like, well, this didn'twork in this area, it's not
going to work in any area, right?
That's pervasiveness.
And the third thing is makingeverything personal.
So if something's happeningthat's negative or that you
(16:40):
don't want, you're making thatabout you.
Now, it's important to takeresponsibility, of course, for
our own mistakes, but peoplethat have this sense of learned
helplessness tend to blamethemselves for everything, and
the truth is we're notresponsible for everything that
happens to us.
(17:00):
We'd like to be, we'd like tobe in control of all of that.
It would make our life easier.
We could avoid all theunpleasantness and all the
things we don't want and justhave life unfold in our grand
vision.
But that's just not the way itworks, and there's other people,
there's other factors, there'scircumstances that happen that
we don't want, and the truth isthat when we face those
(17:23):
circumstances, it's veryimportant to do it with a
clarity of am I responsible forthis, what part am I responsible
for, and take accountabilityfor that, so you can learn right
.
That's important but don't takeaccountability for the whole
thing.
Don't say to yourself thiswould have never happened if I
hadn't been involved or thiswould have never happened if it
wasn't for me, because that'sjust usually not true.
(17:47):
There's other things going onbesides you, and so when you
tell yourself things like that,the problem with it is that it
can really do a number on yourself-worth, your self-esteem and
the degree of optimism or lackthereof that you look.
(18:07):
You know the lens you view yourlife through.
If you think everything badthat happens is your fault,
you're not going to shape thelife you want, and it's really
important to avoid theomnipotence of self-blame.
Look at things with clarity andbe clear about the things that
you caused and the things thatyou're accountable for, that you
(18:29):
might want to do differentlynext time, and the things that
are caused by someone else.
I related to this one because inmy past I've had a relationship
or two where the person wassuffering from like in one case
like substance abuse, in anothercase it was more just like
(18:52):
self-sabotaging behavior andthere were periods of time in
those relationships where Ithought it was my fault.
When you're in a relationshipwith someone you care about and
they're doing things like that.
I think parents go through thisa lot.
You think it must have been myfault.
(19:12):
I think parents go through thisa lot.
You think it must have been myfault.
It must have raised the kid ina way that caused this.
Right If they've got anaddiction problem.
Or I know I was coachingsomeone else whose grown
children were on their seconddivorce and what came up in the
course of the conversation wasthey've been married twice in 10
(19:33):
years and this must have to dowith this must be my fault,
something with the way I raisedthem.
We have to give peopleresponsibility for their own
lives.
Yes, we can always do better.
Everybody can always do betterat everything.
So that's probably true.
But at the end of the day, yourchildren are going to make
mistakes, right?
Your partners are going to makemistakes, and those mistakes
(19:56):
are theirs to make.
Those are their choices to make.
You don't control everythingthat other people do, and so,
while you want to be there tosupport people, there has to be
a clear boundary around whatyou're willing to take
accountability for and what istheirs to own, and that line is
(20:16):
very clear.
It's the same thing on how youlook at other parts of your life
.
This is happening because of me.
That kind of thing it's not agreat possibilities oriented way
of looking at your life.
As I'm talking about thislearned helplessness concept,
you might be recognizing thingsin your career, things in your
life where you might have had abelief that this was permanent
(20:40):
or felt like that bad thing waseverywhere pervasiveness and you
might have recognized inyourself your tendency to make
things personal, to make themyour fault or to assign full
responsibility for everythingbad that happens to yourself.
Right, and you might bewondering if you recognize that
(21:01):
now.
What you might recognizeintellectually that's not the
way you want to be.
But by the time we get tomidlife, we tend to look at our
way of being in the world aspermanent.
We don't really think aboutourselves going forward as being
fluid, not in the same way wedid in our growth years from
(21:21):
zero to 18, where we're becomingand being shaped.
I think 90% of us take thatdefault way of being that we
learn through our environment,the people around us and stuff
like that.
That's who we are in the worldand that becomes who we are for
the rest of our life, but I'mtelling you it doesn't have to
be that way and why I wanted totalk about this today changing
perspective in midlife it's like, well, what's the fix for
(21:46):
learned helplessness?
What's the fix for having a setstuck way of looking at the
world and what Dr Seligmanteaches?
And I believe it is possible tochange your default style so
that you replace any learnedhelplessness tendencies that you
(22:07):
see with something calledlearned optimism.
This is derived from cognitivebehavioral therapy.
It's important to have awarenessof where this is showing up and
examining, I think, narrativesthat have happened or built over
(22:27):
your life, like my client whosaid I'm always the girl in the
bad relationship.
That is an establishednarrative for her, but is it
true?
No, it's been true, maybebecause of the choices that
she's made, but does it alwayshave to be true?
No, how would she change that?
(22:49):
Well, that's what we're workingon, but she would change it by
fundamentally, before she evengets into a relationship, really
gets clear on her own worth andher own identity, such that she
knows what she wants and startsto make choices about future
relationships through that lens.
And as she does that, she findsherself probably down the road
(23:13):
in a different relationship thatserves her better, one that
isn't consistent with hernarrative of I'm the girl in the
bad relationship, right, and sothat can be true for any part
of your life.
So learn optimism.
So I would say, like apply it towhat I was talking about in
your career so broken ways ofworking in an organization.
(23:36):
That's one of the reasonspeople hate their job.
It's one of the reasons peopleleave their job because they're
tired of the inefficient,dysfunctional, non-helpful ways
of working in the organization.
They feel it'll never changeand want something better.
People say they leave badleaders.
(23:56):
I think they leavedysfunctional organizations.
The way to fix it.
In your career, if you're aleader but you can do it even if
you're not you can take to yourleader ideas of changing things
that you see that are broken,not settling for the way things
are working because you believethat that's the only way the
organization's ever going tofunction, but instead to say how
(24:19):
can I change this part of it?
Don't look at the whole thing.
Look at your functions, yourteam.
How can you start functioningbetter?
What can you change about theroles?
What can you change about theroles?
What can you change about theprocesses?
What can you change about theparts where you touch other
teams.
That is how change starts.
(24:39):
It starts from the inside outin organizations in a micro way.
The ripple effects of thatchange affect the people around
you.
Then they have to change andthat's how the ripple effect of
change can go through theorganization without having to
blow anything up, without havingto fire half the workforce,
(25:00):
without having to fire all yourorganizational leads.
Change it one tiny nucleus of ateam at a time.
That's how broken things arefixed.
I've done it myself and it canbe uncomfortable for the leader
because as you start to changeand those ripple effects change,
it does upset.
You've moved other people'scheese and they get upset about
(25:22):
that.
But when they start living in anew, more highly functioning
organization where things areactually getting done and all of
the negative unpleasantnessstarts to diminish and die down,
I think everybody enjoys itmore.
Right?
Everybody does better work,everybody gets praise.
The company does better.
That's how it starts is bybelieving first that things can
(25:45):
change and by focusing on theinside your team, your function
and then let the ripple effectsof those be felt across the
organization and take aleadership role in helping to
make that happen, extending thehand to other people that might
be at your peer level or higherand helping them see how the
(26:07):
connectivity points between yourtwo teams could change and
become more high functioning.
The same is true in your lifethe learned optimism of
believing that you might havethese established ways of being
that have always been theresince you were young.
But none of it has to be set.
(26:27):
You are not set.
You are able to approach lifein a different way, and you can
do that first.
Just like I said, in anorganization you don't start by
blowing things up in your life.
You don't have to sell yourhouse and move.
You don't have to leave yourpartner.
You don't have to do any ofthose things first.
(26:49):
What you need to do first ischange yourself.
You don't have to do any ofthose things first.
What you need to do first ischange yourself.
Change what you believe ispossible for yourself and who
you believe at the nucleus ofyourself that you are.
That's why, in my practice, Istart with self-concept and
we're always working on that,because if you believe that you
(27:10):
are the girl in the badrelationship, just keep going
back to my client or whateveryou believe.
You know you're the one whocan't manage their money, or
you're the one who can neverlose weight, or whatever your
issues are, you will never do it.
You will always be that if youbelieve that's who you are.
But if you change that and youallow yourself to see the truth,
(27:31):
which is this is maybe a trendin your life, maybe you're at a
weight you don't want to be at,maybe you've had these patterns
of behavior and ways of being inyour life, relationships or
with money.
But that can stop right now andit stops by you looking at
yourself in a different way,realizing that you're the one
(27:54):
who can just decide to becomegreat at managing money.
You're the one who becomes theperson who's living at their
ideal weight, and you're the onewho becomes the person who's
choosing the right relationshipsor showing up differently in
your relationships.
Or you're the one who's thewonderful parent, not the bad
(28:16):
parent, or whatever you'retelling yourself.
And it's like when you start tolook at yourself through that
optimistic lens and you start tothink about not who you are
through the lens of your past,but who you are through the lens
of who you want to be in thefuture, that is a very powerful
thing because you can sit inthat that moment of self-concept
(28:41):
creation and you can look toyour future you that you want to
be in five years, in 10 years,and say, okay, like, how do I
become that?
And like, in my case, like, howdo I move from something I've
always identified with, likebeing the brand strategist for,
you know, x corporation, intothe CEO of my own business?
(29:07):
That shift has been shockinglyhard for me.
It's not that I think I can'tdo it, because I tend to look at
my business capabilities that Ibelieve I can do anything.
But shifting who I am has beena journey for me, and so it
(29:28):
takes time sometimes to changeestablished ways of being.
But the germ of the idea startswith what you believe is
possible in your life and whenyou believe that, yes, I might
have always been this thing, butI choose to be something else
in the future.
I'm going to start right nowfiguring out who I want that to
(29:50):
be and then starting to align myway of being today with what
that future thing is, not thepast.
My client says she's the girlin the bad relationship.
It's like, okay, well, now weknow you've got patterns of
behavior there that you don'twant the future.
Who do you want to be in threeyears and five years?
(30:12):
What do you want that to looklike?
And then come back to today andsay how do I change how I'm
showing up?
Not with what I've done in thepast, but how do I break that
old behavior and start showingup as something new, something
that serves you and heads you inthe direction that you want to
(30:33):
go?
So that's what I mean bychanging perspective at midlife.
The concept of learnedhelplessness and learned
optimism is the perfect way ofthinking about it and talking
about it, because the thing thatI want you most to take away
from this episode is, even ifyou're 45, 50, 60, 70, it
(30:53):
doesn't matter your age If thereare things about your life that
you don't like, I want you tocultivate a way of looking at
your life that is optimistic,that sees the issues for what
they are, but that then givesyourself permission to say that
doesn't have to be permanent.
(31:14):
That might've been my oldpatterns of thought, but I can
change it.
I'm going to start looking towho I want to be in the future
and letting how I show up todayalign with that.
That is self-concept work.
It goes a lot deeper than that.
But that is why that's where mypractice focuses, because I
believe when we are constantlyworking on our self-concept,
(31:37):
that's when we start optimizingeverything about who we are, how
we show up in our world and theresults and things that are
possible in our life.
I hope you found this episode onlearned helplessness helpful.
When I first heard the theory,I could immediately identify so
many examples from my corporateexperience and even my personal
(32:01):
life.
It was really helpful tounderstand the three components
of it and it's a really greatway to use those three
components to kind of checkyourself.
Sometimes, because we just havethese learned patterns of
thought that become ingrainedover time and when we find
ourselves in differentsituations, maybe more
(32:23):
challenging situations, eitherin our corporate or personal
life, it can make us feel stuck.
If we settle into a default wayof thinking that has this
learned helplessness pattern toit, it can really become this
thought prison that we stay inand don't allow ourselves to
(32:46):
kind of shake ourselves loose sowe can move forward in our life
in the way that we want.
So I hope you found thisperspective helpful.
I certainly did when I heard itand I also want to thank you.
If you are here today for thefirst time, welcome.
I published a new episode everySunday and if you've been here
(33:06):
with me since the beginning,thank you so much.
I appreciate each and every oneof you and I would be so
grateful, if you enjoy thispodcast, if you would please go
out to Apple or your favoritepodcast platform and give me a
rating or review.
It just helps with thealgorithm, we get served up more
(33:27):
when we get ratings and it'svery challenging to get people
to go out and give you a rating.
So if you enjoy the episode andyou listen every week, I would
be so grateful if you would dothat.
Or, you know, if you're soinclined, I'd love your feedback
via email.
Feel free to please email me ifthere are topics that you want
me to address or questions thatyou have.
(33:48):
I would love to get to know you, so you can always reach me at
Carla at the purposefulcareercom, and with that I will
leave you till next time.
Make it a great week.
My friend, do you have a lifecoach?
(34:17):
If not, I'd be so honored to beyour coach.
I've created a virtual coachingprogram and monthly membership
called Next Level.
Inside, we take the materialyou hear on this podcast.
Study it and then apply it.
Join me at thepurposefulcareercom backslash
next level.
Don't forget thepurposefulcareercom backslash
(34:39):
next level.
Join me and together we'll makeyour career in life everything
you dream of.
We'll see you there.
This is the Purposeful Career Podcast,
episode number 224.
I'm Carla Hudson, brandstrategist, entrepreneur and
life coach.
Whether you're on the corporateor entrepreneur track, or maybe
both, decades of experience hastaught me that creating success
happens from the inside out.
(00:21):
It's about having the clarity,self-confidence and unstoppable
belief to go after and geteverything you want.
If you'll come with me, I'llshow you how Well.
Hello, my friend.
I hope you had an amazing week.
(00:42):
Today we're going to talk aboutlearned helplessness, and that
is a very interesting topic, onethat applies to both your
career and your personal life,so I'm going to put it in both
contexts in this episode.
I think it's super, superinteresting because, for me, I
have definitely observed in my30-year corporate career there
(01:06):
are some cultures that are stuckcultures.
Right, they're just notcultures that move forward.
They're not cultures thateasily transform themselves.
They're not cultures that aresort of open to reinvention and
change.
They pushed hard against it,even though lots of things are
broken.
(01:26):
Not every company is like that,but I have been in some that
are.
You may have as well, butthere's also a component of this
that impacts, or can impact,our personal life.
We can have learnedhelplessness in our life and we
get stuck in situations orrelationships or financial
(01:48):
situations, whatever it is,where we can feel like there's
just no way out, you know, andwe tell ourselves that we just
have to kind of live with it andlearn how to deal with it.
So I wanted to explore thetopic on this week's episode,
and in the episode I'll give youseveral examples, some from my
(02:08):
life, some from a couple ofclients that I'm coaching, and
I'll also just share with youthe perspectives of the
University of Pennsylvania,which has a practice area in
positive psychology, and I thinkthey're the authors of this
learned helplessness theory.
Super interesting, it's good toknow.
(02:28):
So when I'm walking you throughthis, I really do encourage you
to look at it through the lensof your own experiences, whether
that be on the personal side orthe corporate, business side,
and I'll give you some tools ifyou're a leader, and I'll give
you some tools if you're aleader ways to think about it
(02:49):
and perspectives on how tonotice it and maybe how to be a
catalyst for change in anorganization that might find
change a more challengingproposition.
So, with that being said, Ihope you enjoy this episode on
learned helplessness.
This week we're going to talkabout changing perspective and
(03:12):
midlife, and to illustrate this,I want to talk about it in both
ways.
I want to talk about it throughthe lens of career, of course,
because that's primarily what wetalk about on this podcast, but
we also talk about the wholeperson.
So I want to talk about thisconcept of perspective through
the lens of something that theyteach at the University of
(03:35):
Pennsylvania.
It's called learnedhelplessness, and I think it's
really valuable.
This is something that DrSeligman pioneered in the 70s at
the University of Pennsylvania,and he actually founded the
Positive Psychology Center atUPenn, and when I went through
the certification, this reallyresonated with me.
(03:57):
I instantly saw through thelens of myself as a leader of
teams and functions in my pastcareer as well as in my own life
.
I thought, oh my goodness, Isee how this is a factor, and so
I want to talk about what is it, and I want to share his view
(04:18):
of the things that make uplearned helplessness.
And I want you to challengeyourself, as I'm talking about
some of this, to look at yourown life the way I did when I
first heard it.
I think we all have it to somedegree.
Think about your corporate andpersonal life and look for how
learned helplessness might beshowing up in you.
(04:38):
So let's talk first about whatis it Learned?
Helplessness is when a person isunable to find resolutions to
difficult situations.
Even when a solution is there,even when it's accessible, they
just don't see it, don't act onit and they stay in this
(05:02):
suboptimal situation thatusually they don't want to be in
right.
So we remain passive innegative situations, despite our
ability to change or removeourselves from the situation.
Now, this is super important.
Let's put it through the careerlens first.
(05:23):
If you are an organizationalleader whether you lead a team,
or whether you are a functionallead or a company lead this is
incredibly important because,like if you look at my own
career path, it's been somewhatnontraditional.
As I got into the specialty ofbrand Brand, especially in the
(05:44):
2000s to 2010s, it was a veryhighly sought after.
It still is, but those timeperiods were the age of brand
and they were always looking fortalent, and so I looked at my
own career.
I would say this is theopposite of learned helplessness
.
I looked at my own career asbeing up to me.
This is a good way to look atthe antidote to learned
(06:08):
helplessness.
I looked at it as it's up to meto have the career I want.
No one's going to do that forme.
I'm not going to stay with acompany for 30 years and try to
sell them on what a great personI am If I'm not getting the
opportunities that I want, if Ican't fully optimize, if I can't
fully bring my skill set to anorganization.
It's kind of the way I lookedat it when a headhunter would
(06:30):
call and they would talk to me.
A recruiter would talk to meabout a potentially great
situation where I could go inand lead a team and drive change
and make a difference If itmade sense, and I would put it
through the specific filter thatI won't really talk about now.
But if it made sense, I did it.
I have a series of moves.
Sometimes I stayed three years,sometimes five, sometimes two.
(06:52):
It depended on who called nextand what I decided to do.
And because of that my point isI think that is a very powerful
way of looking at your owncareer.
I experienced many situationswhere I was dropped in at a
fairly senior level and was ableto see the functioning of
(07:14):
different organizations, andmany organizations have learned
helplessness.
Sometimes it's just within ateam, sometimes it's just within
a function, sometimes it's justwithin a team, sometimes it's
just within a function andsometimes, in general, it's the
entire organization.
But what I mean by that is thatthere are things that are
broken either definition ofroles, you know, within and
(07:38):
across teams, ill-defined orbroken processes between
functions and brokenrelationships, usually at the
top, across functions, butsometimes within teams.
Those are ways of being thatthe organization has.
One of my big values in mycorporate career is that when
(08:02):
you're responsible for a team ora function, it is 100% your
responsibility to stop thelearned helplessness and to
raise awareness of where thingsare broken and to be the one
that's there first, withstarting to figure out how to
(08:24):
get a new way of beingestablished in the organization.
Now, this is not easy to do.
It's emotionally exhausting,having done it many times and to
lead that because you've got todo it at every level.
You've got to first talk toyour peers across other
functions who interact with you.
You've got to get them alignedon a different way of being, and
(08:48):
they may not be open to that.
That's tough, right.
Even just as tough isconvincing your team.
It's possible for things tochange and to have the courage
to come with you as you'reshaping the new way of being.
And it's just like anything inlife as a leader, as you drive
(09:10):
out that change within your teamand you're showing up
differently and things areoptimizing and work's getting
done faster, it sort of forcesthe entire organization to start
doing their own optimization,because it shines a light on
what's really broken.
Until there's an organizationalleader willing to do that,
(09:33):
nothing changes.
Everything stays broken.
To organizational leaders,functional leaders, ceos,
c-suite, it is 100% yourresponsibility to make sure that
the learned helplessness inyour organizations stops
permanently.
There are too many forces inthe outside world.
(09:54):
It is not 1980, 1990.
It's not even 2000s anymore orthe 2010s.
We are now in an era wherechange is quantum and there are
too many things.
I mean, just look at we've gonefrom talking about AI like
artificial intelligence, as anabstract thing that'll happen in
(10:14):
the future, to now there'sthese high functioning chat bots
and things chat, gbt chat, gbt4, like all kinds of things
little apps now that arepowerful and quite good.
They're already changing howstudents learn, how students
(10:36):
research, how organizationsmarketing departments are
expanding their own ideationcapabilities by leveraging some
of these things.
It is quickly going to changeeverything.
That's just one littlecomponent of what's changing.
So I feel like we can't staystuck in old ways of being, and
(10:57):
I believe that organizationsthat don't find ways to break
the learned helplessness withintheir own organizations or teams
or whatever, are going to beincreasingly left behind at a
fast pace.
I truly, 100% believe it and Ibelieve that, while it can be
difficult to be the one thatraises your hand first questions
(11:21):
, established ways of beingquestions, the status quo, power
structures it doesn'tnecessarily earn you friends,
but all that will fall to theside as you start to sell it in,
as you approach it in a waythat's not threatening, as you
keep the olive branch extendedto other organizations around
(11:42):
you.
I believe you can galvanizechange within an organization
and completely reinvent.
I've done it a lot of times.
I haven't always been in a rolethat allowed me to do it, I
wasn't always high enough to doit, but in many organizations
the teams that I worked forwould tell you how they function
when I came in and how theyfunction and thought about their
roles when I left werecompletely different, because we
(12:06):
started to question everything.
We started to question thelearned helplessness, the
established ways of being thatweren't working, and found new
ways that did work.
That's how you optimize anddrive change in your leadership
role.
So that's to me, the antidoteto the learned helplessness, the
stuckness, the brokenness of anorganization is for someone to
(12:29):
come in and say I'm going tostart questioning all of the
ways of being.
But I want to talk to you abouthow this shows up in our
personal life, because it isvery much something that isn't
just showing up in our career.
You definitely can see it inorganizations and with people in
your career, but also in yourpersonal life.
Dr Seligman says that there arereally three things that make
(12:55):
up learned helplessness.
So if you want to double clickinto the concept, the three
things are that we have a senseof permanence about the problem,
that there's a sense ofpervasiveness about the problem
and that we make it personal.
So I want to talk about each ofthose in a minute, because
that's really what is underneathfeeling stuck, whether you're
(13:21):
in an organization or whetheryou're talking about something
in your personal life.
So this feeling that we believethat it's permanent.
He said that when we look atour life or career or whatever
through a lens where we believethings are permanent.
It is the belief that thisnegative thing, whatever it is,
(13:42):
and their causes of the negativething are always going to be
there, that it's never not goingto be the way things are so
like, for example, I'm coachingsomeone right now and we're
talking about her problems orher challenges.
She's in the tech sector andshe kind of feels like she's
like in her mid to late thirtiesand she's got this way of being
(14:04):
in her career and she'sstarting to recognize that she
needs to change some thingsabout how she shows up.
The last couple of sessions shestarted to connect the dots out
on well, this is the way I amand this is how I show up and,
as a result, this is how mycareer is going.
She's extrapolating that outnow into oh and, by the way,
(14:25):
this is why my relationships arealways a hot mess, because I'm
always the girl with the bad guyor the wrong guy right.
So she's got this narrative onwho she is in relationships, how
she chooses partners and howshe shows up within those
relationships.
That may not be the best forher and she believes that it'll
never not be that way.
She looks at her friends' livesand they're starting to choose
(14:50):
their long-term partner.
They're starting to makedecisions around children or
houses, making their life whatthey want long-term.
And she feels stuck in hercollege years and it feels like
she has not progressed.
And it's because she has thisview of herself and her
relationship choices wherethere's this sense of permanence
(15:11):
around something that she knowslike on one level is not
optimal, but she doesn't feelempowered to change it, right?
So that's what I mean bypermanence is that you believe
that there's these things inyour career or your life that
aren't the way you want, but youbelieve that, for whatever
reason, you're powerless tochange them.
(15:33):
They're happening to you andyour response to it is what it
is and that dance is never goingto change, right?
So that's permanence.
Second thing is pervasiveness.
We can look at a problem in ourcareer life it's kind of what
my client was doing and you canlook at it as the problem is
(15:53):
everywhere.
It's not just one part of mylife, it's in my whole life.
Everything is terrible.
You know, I failed at thisthing, so I'm always going to be
a failure at things like that.
So I'm not going to try anymore, like it's a very limiting way
of being, because it takessomething that might've been
true about one part of your lifeor one situation and it
(16:17):
extrapolates it out into otherthings and you have this sense
of looming negativity or doom.
It's like, well, this didn'twork in this area, it's not
going to work in any area, right?
That's pervasiveness.
And the third thing is makingeverything personal.
So if something's happeningthat's negative or that you
(16:40):
don't want, you're making thatabout you.
Now, it's important to takeresponsibility, of course, for
our own mistakes, but peoplethat have this sense of learned
helplessness tend to blamethemselves for everything, and
the truth is we're notresponsible for everything that
happens to us.
(17:00):
We'd like to be, we'd like tobe in control of all of that.
It would make our life easier.
We could avoid all theunpleasantness and all the
things we don't want and justhave life unfold in our grand
vision.
But that's just not the way itworks, and there's other people,
there's other factors, there'scircumstances that happen that
we don't want, and the truth isthat when we face those
(17:23):
circumstances, it's veryimportant to do it with a
clarity of am I responsible forthis, what part am I responsible
for, and take accountabilityfor that, so you can learn right
.
That's important but don't takeaccountability for the whole
thing.
Don't say to yourself thiswould have never happened if I
hadn't been involved or thiswould have never happened if it
wasn't for me, because that'sjust usually not true.
(17:47):
There's other things going onbesides you, and so when you
tell yourself things like that,the problem with it is that it
can really do a number on yourself-worth, your self-esteem and
the degree of optimism or lackthereof that you look.
(18:07):
You know the lens you view yourlife through.
If you think everything badthat happens is your fault,
you're not going to shape thelife you want, and it's really
important to avoid theomnipotence of self-blame.
Look at things with clarity andbe clear about the things that
you caused and the things thatyou're accountable for, that you
(18:29):
might want to do differentlynext time, and the things that
are caused by someone else.
I related to this one because inmy past I've had a relationship
or two where the person wassuffering from like in one case
like substance abuse, in anothercase it was more just like
(18:52):
self-sabotaging behavior andthere were periods of time in
those relationships where Ithought it was my fault.
When you're in a relationshipwith someone you care about and
they're doing things like that.
I think parents go through thisa lot.
You think it must have been myfault.
(19:12):
I think parents go through thisa lot.
You think it must have been myfault.
It must have raised the kid ina way that caused this.
Right If they've got anaddiction problem.
Or I know I was coachingsomeone else whose grown
children were on their seconddivorce and what came up in the
course of the conversation wasthey've been married twice in 10
(19:33):
years and this must have to dowith this must be my fault,
something with the way I raisedthem.
We have to give peopleresponsibility for their own
lives.
Yes, we can always do better.
Everybody can always do betterat everything.
So that's probably true.
But at the end of the day, yourchildren are going to make
mistakes, right?
Your partners are going to makemistakes, and those mistakes
(19:56):
are theirs to make.
Those are their choices to make.
You don't control everythingthat other people do, and so,
while you want to be there tosupport people, there has to be
a clear boundary around whatyou're willing to take
accountability for and what istheirs to own, and that line is
(20:16):
very clear.
It's the same thing on how youlook at other parts of your life
.
This is happening because of me.
That kind of thing it's not agreat possibilities oriented way
of looking at your life.
As I'm talking about thislearned helplessness concept,
you might be recognizing thingsin your career, things in your
life where you might have had abelief that this was permanent
(20:40):
or felt like that bad thing waseverywhere pervasiveness and you
might have recognized inyourself your tendency to make
things personal, to make themyour fault or to assign full
responsibility for everythingbad that happens to yourself.
Right, and you might bewondering if you recognize that
(21:01):
now.
What you might recognizeintellectually that's not the
way you want to be.
But by the time we get tomidlife, we tend to look at our
way of being in the world aspermanent.
We don't really think aboutourselves going forward as being
fluid, not in the same way wedid in our growth years from
(21:21):
zero to 18, where we're becomingand being shaped.
I think 90% of us take thatdefault way of being that we
learn through our environment,the people around us and stuff
like that.
That's who we are in the worldand that becomes who we are for
the rest of our life, but I'mtelling you it doesn't have to
be that way and why I wanted totalk about this today changing
perspective in midlife it's like, well, what's the fix for
(21:46):
learned helplessness?
What's the fix for having a setstuck way of looking at the
world and what Dr Seligmanteaches?
And I believe it is possible tochange your default style so
that you replace any learnedhelplessness tendencies that you
(22:07):
see with something calledlearned optimism.
This is derived from cognitivebehavioral therapy.
It's important to have awarenessof where this is showing up and
examining, I think, narrativesthat have happened or built over
(22:27):
your life, like my client whosaid I'm always the girl in the
bad relationship.
That is an establishednarrative for her, but is it
true?
No, it's been true, maybebecause of the choices that
she's made, but does it alwayshave to be true?
No, how would she change that?
(22:49):
Well, that's what we're workingon, but she would change it by
fundamentally, before she evengets into a relationship, really
gets clear on her own worth andher own identity, such that she
knows what she wants and startsto make choices about future
relationships through that lens.
And as she does that, she findsherself probably down the road
(23:13):
in a different relationship thatserves her better, one that
isn't consistent with hernarrative of I'm the girl in the
bad relationship, right, and sothat can be true for any part
of your life.
So learn optimism.
So I would say, like apply it towhat I was talking about in
your career so broken ways ofworking in an organization.
(23:36):
That's one of the reasonspeople hate their job.
It's one of the reasons peopleleave their job because they're
tired of the inefficient,dysfunctional, non-helpful ways
of working in the organization.
They feel it'll never changeand want something better.
People say they leave badleaders.
(23:56):
I think they leavedysfunctional organizations.
The way to fix it.
In your career, if you're aleader but you can do it even if
you're not you can take to yourleader ideas of changing things
that you see that are broken,not settling for the way things
are working because you believethat that's the only way the
organization's ever going tofunction, but instead to say how
(24:19):
can I change this part of it?
Don't look at the whole thing.
Look at your functions, yourteam.
How can you start functioningbetter?
What can you change about theroles?
What can you change about theroles?
What can you change about theprocesses?
What can you change about theparts where you touch other
teams.
That is how change starts.
(24:39):
It starts from the inside outin organizations in a micro way.
The ripple effects of thatchange affect the people around
you.
Then they have to change andthat's how the ripple effect of
change can go through theorganization without having to
blow anything up, without havingto fire half the workforce,
(25:00):
without having to fire all yourorganizational leads.
Change it one tiny nucleus of ateam at a time.
That's how broken things arefixed.
I've done it myself and it canbe uncomfortable for the leader
because as you start to changeand those ripple effects change,
it does upset.
You've moved other people'scheese and they get upset about
(25:22):
that.
But when they start living in anew, more highly functioning
organization where things areactually getting done and all of
the negative unpleasantnessstarts to diminish and die down,
I think everybody enjoys itmore.
Right?
Everybody does better work,everybody gets praise.
The company does better.
That's how it starts is bybelieving first that things can
(25:45):
change and by focusing on theinside your team, your function
and then let the ripple effectsof those be felt across the
organization and take aleadership role in helping to
make that happen, extending thehand to other people that might
be at your peer level or higherand helping them see how the
(26:07):
connectivity points between yourtwo teams could change and
become more high functioning.
The same is true in your lifethe learned optimism of
believing that you might havethese established ways of being
that have always been theresince you were young.
But none of it has to be set.
(26:27):
You are not set.
You are able to approach lifein a different way, and you can
do that first.
Just like I said, in anorganization you don't start by
blowing things up in your life.
You don't have to sell yourhouse and move.
You don't have to leave yourpartner.
You don't have to do any ofthose things first.
(26:49):
What you need to do first ischange yourself.
You don't have to do any ofthose things first.
What you need to do first ischange yourself.
Change what you believe ispossible for yourself and who
you believe at the nucleus ofyourself that you are.
That's why, in my practice, Istart with self-concept and
we're always working on that,because if you believe that you
(27:10):
are the girl in the badrelationship, just keep going
back to my client or whateveryou believe.
You know you're the one whocan't manage their money, or
you're the one who can neverlose weight, or whatever your
issues are, you will never do it.
You will always be that if youbelieve that's who you are.
But if you change that and youallow yourself to see the truth,
(27:31):
which is this is maybe a trendin your life, maybe you're at a
weight you don't want to be at,maybe you've had these patterns
of behavior and ways of being inyour life, relationships or
with money.
But that can stop right now andit stops by you looking at
yourself in a different way,realizing that you're the one
(27:54):
who can just decide to becomegreat at managing money.
You're the one who becomes theperson who's living at their
ideal weight, and you're the onewho becomes the person who's
choosing the right relationshipsor showing up differently in
your relationships.
Or you're the one who's thewonderful parent, not the bad
(28:16):
parent, or whatever you'retelling yourself.
And it's like when you start tolook at yourself through that
optimistic lens and you start tothink about not who you are
through the lens of your past,but who you are through the lens
of who you want to be in thefuture, that is a very powerful
thing because you can sit inthat that moment of self-concept
(28:41):
creation and you can look toyour future you that you want to
be in five years, in 10 years,and say, okay, like, how do I
become that?
And like, in my case, like, howdo I move from something I've
always identified with, likebeing the brand strategist for,
you know, x corporation, intothe CEO of my own business?
(29:07):
That shift has been shockinglyhard for me.
It's not that I think I can'tdo it, because I tend to look at
my business capabilities that Ibelieve I can do anything.
But shifting who I am has beena journey for me, and so it
(29:28):
takes time sometimes to changeestablished ways of being.
But the germ of the idea startswith what you believe is
possible in your life and whenyou believe that, yes, I might
have always been this thing, butI choose to be something else
in the future.
I'm going to start right nowfiguring out who I want that to
(29:50):
be and then starting to align myway of being today with what
that future thing is, not thepast.
My client says she's the girlin the bad relationship.
It's like, okay, well, now weknow you've got patterns of
behavior there that you don'twant the future.
Who do you want to be in threeyears and five years?
(30:12):
What do you want that to looklike?
And then come back to today andsay how do I change how I'm
showing up?
Not with what I've done in thepast, but how do I break that
old behavior and start showingup as something new, something
that serves you and heads you inthe direction that you want to
(30:33):
go?
So that's what I mean bychanging perspective at midlife.
The concept of learnedhelplessness and learned
optimism is the perfect way ofthinking about it and talking
about it, because the thing thatI want you most to take away
from this episode is, even ifyou're 45, 50, 60, 70, it
(30:53):
doesn't matter your age If thereare things about your life that
you don't like, I want you tocultivate a way of looking at
your life that is optimistic,that sees the issues for what
they are, but that then givesyourself permission to say that
doesn't have to be permanent.
(31:14):
That might've been my oldpatterns of thought, but I can
change it.
I'm going to start looking towho I want to be in the future
and letting how I show up todayalign with that.
That is self-concept work.
It goes a lot deeper than that.
But that is why that's where mypractice focuses, because I
believe when we are constantlyworking on our self-concept,
(31:37):
that's when we start optimizingeverything about who we are, how
we show up in our world and theresults and things that are
possible in our life.
I hope you found this episode onlearned helplessness helpful.
When I first heard the theory,I could immediately identify so
many examples from my corporateexperience and even my personal
(32:01):
life.
It was really helpful tounderstand the three components
of it and it's a really greatway to use those three
components to kind of checkyourself.
Sometimes, because we just havethese learned patterns of
thought that become ingrainedover time and when we find
ourselves in differentsituations, maybe more
(32:23):
challenging situations, eitherin our corporate or personal
life, it can make us feel stuck.
If we settle into a default wayof thinking that has this
learned helplessness pattern toit, it can really become this
thought prison that we stay inand don't allow ourselves to
(32:46):
kind of shake ourselves loose sowe can move forward in our life
in the way that we want.
So I hope you found thisperspective helpful.
I certainly did when I heard itand I also want to thank you.
If you are here today for thefirst time, welcome.
I published a new episode everySunday and if you've been here
(33:06):
with me since the beginning,thank you so much.
I appreciate each and every oneof you and I would be so
grateful, if you enjoy thispodcast, if you would please go
out to Apple or your favoritepodcast platform and give me a
rating or review.
It just helps with thealgorithm, we get served up more
(33:27):
when we get ratings and it'svery challenging to get people
to go out and give you a rating.
So if you enjoy the episode andyou listen every week, I would
be so grateful if you would dothat.
Or, you know, if you're soinclined, I'd love your feedback
via email.
Feel free to please email me ifthere are topics that you want
me to address or questions thatyou have.
(33:48):
I would love to get to know you, so you can always reach me at
Carla at the purposefulcareercom, and with that I will
leave you till next time.
Make it a great week.
My friend, do you have a lifecoach?
(34:17):
If not, I'd be so honored to beyour coach.
I've created a virtual coachingprogram and monthly membership
called Next Level.
Inside, we take the materialyou hear on this podcast.
Study it and then apply it.
Join me at thepurposefulcareercom backslash
next level.
Don't forget thepurposefulcareercom backslash
(34:39):
next level.
Join me and together we'll makeyour career in life everything
you dream of.
We'll see you there.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.