July 26, 2024 • 49 mins
Discover the secrets to navigating career transitions from Sharon Belden Castonguay, the Executive Director of the Career Center at Wesleyan University, as she shares invaluable insights from her multifaceted career journey. Uncover the power of leveraging your unique strengths to stand out in any field while understanding the dynamic process of identity evolution. Sharon's personal experiences shed light on the often conflicting societal expectations and personal aspirations that shape our professional paths.
Explore the pressures and complexities faced by students and parents in the competitive college admissions landscape. We'll discuss how early decision-making can stifle experimentation and the importance of genuine experiences to truly confirm career aspirations. Learn why visibility and perceived stability of certain careers like medicine and law often overshadow equally viable but less recognized fields such as cybersecurity, and how the illusion of job security plays a role in these choices.
Gain practical advice on building resilience and adaptability for career satisfaction. From hands-on experiences to the journey of skill development, Sharon highlights the necessity of early self-reflection and continuous evaluation of personal and professional goals. Through personal anecdotes, we delve into the challenges of drastic career shifts and emphasize the importance of professional networking. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to achieve fulfillment and adaptability in today's ever-evolving job market.
Sharon's TEDx talk
The Psychology of Career Decisions
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (00:00):
It's absolutely incredibly important
to recognize what comes easilyto you and to be leveraging that
, really leaning in on thethings that you're uniquely good
at, because that's what's goingto differentiate you in any
market, within any profession.
Joe Miller (00:16):
Sharon, I'm so glad to have you on Titans of
Transition.
I saw your TED Talk and reallyresonated with the points you
made.
Saw your TED Talk and reallyresonated with the points you
made.
I really am interested in thewhole process of people becoming
fulfilled in their choice oftheir career direction and that
whole journey people get on.
(00:36):
In your TED Talk you talkedabout how messy that process can
be and you also brought in thewhole idea of identity and how
we form those identities and howthey're not static.
I just thought, wow, this is agreat talk, really added a lot
to my understanding.
So I wanted to have you on sowe could unpack that.
(00:57):
So again, welcome.
so much for having me.
It's been really gratifying tosee over the years how the talk
has resonated with so many.
I've had like three careers and I see that you've
made some kind of major shiftsas well, and we'll definitely
(01:28):
want to touch on those.
I thought maybe another twistwe might want to take at this,
or another approach, is that wewould bring in some of those key
lessons earlier in ourdiscussion.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat you're doing now and how
you landed on that.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (01:43):
Well, so what I do now is I'm the
executive director of the CareerCenter at Wesleyan University,
which is a highly selective,small liberal arts college in
Connecticut, and I attended asmall liberal arts college as
well.
So in some ways it was comingfull circle and even though I
had spent most of my careerdevelopment career working with
(02:06):
folks who were older so graduatestudents, jds, mbas, people who
were often a lot in their 20sbut I also worked with plenty of
people who were in their 20s,30s, 40s, 50s, getting close to
retirement, and I had aninterest in going back to
working with undergraduates, inpart because I remembered keenly
(02:28):
what my own experience was liketransitioning from a liberal
arts college into the work world, and at the time I graduated,
during a terrible economy wheneverybody was struggling, my dad
was a banker and that wassomething that appealed to me.
So I thought what are theoptions for someone coming out
(02:50):
of this type of institution?
And I knew I didn't want to bein New York, so that cut off a
huge part of the sector, right?
So you're not going to do thekind of big Wall Street finance
if you don't want to be in NewYork.
I was looking at Boston andjust the job market was terrible
.
And I ended up landing in anadvertising agency, in part
(03:11):
because I had kind of creativebent and I thought that might be
an interesting thing to do.
I was interested in copywriting.
There was another Smith grad,someone who graduated a year
ahead of me, who was already atthe agency, who spoke highly of
it and you know, long storyshort, it was a complete
disaster.
I mean, I lasted eight monthsin the position but there was a
(03:37):
lot of lessons learned from thatand you know, one of them was
sort of thinking about how muchexperimentation do you sometimes
need to do after you graduatefrom college?
So to answer your question, youknow how did I get involved in
this kind of work?
It was because by the time Iwas in my late 20s I had already
(03:58):
had several careers and gotinterested in working with
people on those careertransitions and that eventually
ended up coming full circle towhat I'm doing now.
Joe Miller (04:13):
So it's kind of like a matter or a process of trying
things on.
I mean, you do the best you canto sort of discern the path
that's best for you, either therole or the nature of what you
will be doing, but until youreally try it on, you don't
really know.
And I think there's a processor something people go through
(04:35):
where they try to hang on tothings that aren't particularly
a good fit for quite a while,and then there's this sort of
friction or I call thisdissonance that goes on.
And then there's this sort offriction or I call this
dissonance that goes on and youknow they feel almost like they
should be.
There's something wrong withthem or something wrong with you
.
If you're in the middle of this, because you think, well, this
(04:55):
is what I'm supposed to be doing, why am I not enjoying it?
Why do I feel exhausted?
Why, you know why am Iunfulfilled?
Why do I feel exhausted?
Why, you know why am Iunfulfilled?
Sharon Belden Castonguay (05:13):
Kind of what I got from your talk and
is you know, this is kind of anatural process, right, and you
have to keep in mind that howsociety is set up and I don't
even just mean American society,you know, how we as humans, you
know, have set up our societyin terms of training young
people to enter the work worldis often at odds with how we're
actually experiencing thatprocess and healthy for us to do
(05:34):
in terms of figuring out whatis a good fit For most of human
history.
People did what their parentsdid.
You know, if your father was afarmer and you were male, you
went into farming and women keptup whatever that home looked
like.
That kind of thing is stilltrue in many parts of the world.
(05:55):
And when you start looking at,ok, now we're moving to an
industrial society, people mightnot be doing exactly what their
parents did.
You were still going to behighly influenced by what they
were doing, if not literally bytheir profession and following
in someone's footsteps, but byall of the societal roles that
(06:16):
you've now been plugged into byvirtue of your social class,
your gender, where you live.
There's all of these factors,right, that play into that and
the way.
Even now, like you know, fastforward to now when people talk
about you know, how do we getyoung people prepared for the
work world?
It's getting them to okay.
Well, they need to set goals.
(06:41):
They need to set goals early sothat they're on the right
educational paths or they'retaking the right classes,
they're getting the righttraining so that they can enter
something that is going to befulfilling for them and what
society actually needs.
And there's two big problemswith it that are often not quite
captured right.
One is that what society needsis a constantly moving target.
I often tell, like incomingfirst-year students I don't know
(07:04):
what the jobs are going to bewhen you graduate.
Nobody does.
I've been doing this fordecades.
Right, so that constantlyneeding to adapt and be prepared
to be constantly changingwhatever it is you're doing, so
that's a huge piece of it thatis constantly a problem.
The other problem that is, in acertain way, if we do it right,
(07:24):
fixed by the first one, is thatpeople don't know what they
want to do until they startdoing it.
So you know, if you're askingpeople to think about when
they're in middle school, youknow my daughter just finished
middle school.
People are already asking herwhat are you going to do?
What are you going to focus onin high school?
Cause you got to get ready forcollege.
You know she's like how shouldI know?
(07:47):
13 years old.
And there are some countries andI think this is why my talk has
resonated around the world Ihear frequently from people in
countries where they're beingforced by their educational
systems to be making decisionsfairly early on on what
educational tracks they're goingto take in ways that may feel
like they make sense for thatlocal society, that local
culture, the local government interms of making sure that
positions are filled.
But if you're asking someone atan early age to make decisions
(08:10):
that are effectively going todictate what they're doing 10,
20 years later, that can cause alot of dissatisfaction once
somebody's in their 20s and isactually starting to work in
these positions, especially ifthey're feeling trapped Like
I've been educated in this onething and I don't have an easy
way of re-educating myself insomething else.
So I think that if you have theprivilege of the free society
(08:38):
and specifically, am I gettingwhat I need to be getting out of
what I'm doing now?
And if I'm not, what do I needto be learning to shift to
something else and how can I?
be constantly thinking aboutthat.
Joe Miller (08:49):
I think, as well-intentioned parents want to
try to identify the path orhelp your child identify their
path.
Because it's so highlycompetitive, that decision point
seems to be moved further andfurther in.
So now there's a whole phase ofoptimizing the preparation
(09:11):
process before you even get outof high school, to make sure
that you've had obviously allthe right coursework but also
all the other factors that wouldbe considered if you want to
get into a specific college, tokeep you on track for a specific
career, that sort of thing.
So not enough time forexperimentation.
The experimentation processtends to happen after the commit
(09:32):
process quite a bit.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (09:34):
True in some respects.
I think that one thing that'simportant to keep in mind is
there's only a relatively smallslice of American universities
that are really so selectivethat you need to be really you
know, at the top of everythingyou're trying to do when you're
in high school to get in, andWesleyan, the school I work for,
is one of those institutions.
(09:55):
Right, we admit fewer than 20%of students in a typical year
and the students who we do admitare very, very high achieving
Right, but it's not that we'reexpecting them to sign on the
dotted line that they're allspecific on something like a
specific type of engineering.
(10:28):
There's some outlier exampleswhere that would be more true,
but in general, what we'rereally looking for is an
academic prowess and interest,rather than a narrow career
interest.
I'm not saying there aren't,but I think that like if I were
talking to my daughter, who isjust starting high school,
unless you are reallyspecifically I am.
(10:52):
So I've always been fascinatedby airplanes.
I want to major in aerospaceengineering.
I have never questioned thatpath.
I absolutely know that's what Iwant.
Well then, yeah, guidingyourself through a high school
path that's going to get you tothat college path, get you to
that career path, that makessense.
I find that that kind ofcertainty, even in one's 20s, is
(11:14):
very rare.
Joe Miller (11:15):
It is.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (11:16):
I mean the talking.
The talk is not rare.
You talk to a lot of highschool students, a lot of
college students who are able tosay all the right things
because they've been kind oftrained and taught and
acculturated that that's whatthey're supposed to do.
Someone asks you what do youwant to do when you grow up?
You give a really fancy answerI want to be a surgeon.
(11:37):
And then you get reallypositive feedback from adults
that you want to be a surgeon.
So you continue to say you wantto be a surgeon and then
suddenly you're a junior incollege and you're going through
the motions.
Joe Miller (11:52):
You have no idea.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (11:52):
If you want to be a surgeon, right,
yeah, you know when we'reworking with students now our
health professions advisor.
If there's a student who wantsto be a surgeon, okay.
Well, have you gotten EMTtraining?
Go be an EMT for a while.
Do you really like blood andguts?
Joe Miller (12:03):
You don't know until you know, right Right right and
you don't have a sort of fullknowledge set of what that
really is.
The idea of it's a littleseparated from the reality of it
.
So we've been talking quite abit right now about sort of the
external factors, if you will,or influences maybe might be a
(12:24):
better word.
You talked about historicallygoing way back.
You did what your father did oryour family did.
Even names, like my name isMiller, although it actually was
Mueller and changed to German,but there are people who expect
you to be involved with millinggrain or something which is
(12:48):
interesting.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (12:49):
Well, why Smith is the most popular
last name Black.
Joe Miller (12:52):
Smith Like a.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (12:53):
Smith, you were doing something right?
Joe Miller (12:55):
Yes, exactly, but there's also, I think, other
things that come into play.
You mentioned lawyer or surgeonor doctor, picking things that
have that moniker of successfinancial independence that
everyone would want to have.
(13:15):
So it's almost like you haveall these different things
you're trying to optimize for,and sometimes those things get
weighted differently dependingupon your upbringing or your
influences.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (13:29):
Well, there's upbringing and
influences, and there's alsovisibility.
Joe Miller (13:32):
Tell me more about that, yeah.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (13:34):
So one of the reasons why medicine and
law are perennially popular arebecause people know, or they
think they know, what a lawyerdoes, because they watch lawyers
on TV, even if they don't haveone in the family or something.
Right, they feel like they knowwhat a lawyer does and
typically they've been to thedoctor at some point, so they
(13:56):
understand what a doctor does orthey think they understand,
right At least maybe, what apediatrician or a primary care
physician you know.
They have a sense of what thatday-to-day is.
And it's why teaching is alsooften popular, right, because
you've had teachers and you havea sense of what a teacher does.
So things that are visible arealways popular because people
(14:20):
feel like, well, I know whatthat is and that's something I
can see myself doing, which isgreat up to a point.
The problem is that you don'treally know what all types of
doctors do, what all types oflawyers do.
You don't know what everybodyelse does, so most people you're
not going to see what all ofthese other things are.
(14:40):
So, like somebody who works incybersecurity, right, what
exactly does that involve?
Like, I can see a doctor, I cansee a teacher, I can't see a
cybersecurity specialist, let'ssay but I'm reading in the media
that I'll always have a job ifI go into that.
So then you do get actuallythings that become popular
because it seems safe and secure.
(15:01):
And I think that's an importantother layer here, because law
and medicine remain popularbecause they feel safe and
stable and prestigious, andthose don't kind of go together.
So the problem being thatthat's all kind of falling apart
, that in you know now there isno such thing as safe and stable
.
Joe Miller (15:20):
Yeah, so that's, that's trying to chase that.
Yeah, that's a good one.
So I mean, you kind of touchedon we touched on the
significance kind of view ofthings, where certain things
that you see that are visible,have that maybe we didn't unpack
that too much but societal sortof affirmation of those careers
(15:41):
, of those careers.
So there's the significancefactor this is really getting
pop psychology here and thenthere's the security and those
two things kind of bouncing backand forth and trying to get
both at the same time.
You know, might be one way oflooking at this.
But the other thing I wanted totalk about is the overall
(16:04):
journey of this and, as you said, you engage a lot with people
who are starting out, but quitea bit of people who are well
into their careers, that arewell into their journey, that
need clarity and it'sinteresting.
I'd like to unpack that a littlebit.
And maybe there's examples fromthe transitions you've gone
(16:24):
through too.
Let's say, someone had done thebest they can to pick a career
path, they've gone through aneducational track and maybe
they've gotten a degree, they'vegotten out and gotten their
first job or so, but now they'rekind of questioning or they're
thinking about a change.
So talk a little bit about thatand your experience with that
(16:47):
and how you've helped othersthrough that process.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (16:50):
Yeah, yeah, with somebody who is
starting on that process ofthinking about a change, a lot
of what I'm doing in thatconversation it's almost like a
physician doing a diagnostic,you know, getting a sense of
what their whole history hasbeen with decision making.
You know, how did they go aboutmaking that choice of, say,
(17:12):
where to go to school, how theygot into the first job, the
second job, the third job andthe extent to which that they
were following a path of leastresistance versus making really
conscious choices, and to whatextent I see a pattern in their
ability to really reflect on,during the course of their
(17:36):
career, how they were makingthose transitions.
They've already made.
And this was something I saw alot when I was actually doing my
dissertation research, that Iwent out and interviewed a bunch
of people who were all very.
They were successful on paper,they went to good schools, they
had good jobs, they were all.
They looked successful.
But when you actually startedtalking to them there was a
(17:58):
subset who really had nevergotten off the path of least
resistance.
You know they had maybe takenthe first job because mom knew
somebody at the company and thenthey were good at it and even
though they didn't particularlylike it.
They kept getting raises andpromotions and then suddenly
they had a mortgage and two kidsand there was never a point
(18:20):
where things got so bad thatthey felt like they had to leave
.
But they've never beenparticularly satisfied either.
Joe Miller (18:27):
So things were sort of comfortable, but they hadn't
had a major challenge to getthem into that sort of mindset
of.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (18:37):
Right Of really having, and I find
that the people who really weresatisfied with their careers are
the ones who really never letthemselves fall into that path
of least resistance.
They may have taken jobs hereand there because they needed to
pay off the loans or, you know,for whatever reason, but even
if they were in a position thatwas not a good fit, they were
(18:57):
actively trying to work theirway out of it.
So, for instance, it was commonback at the time that these
folks graduated from college totempt for a while where they
were trying to find a full-timeposition, particularly if they
just moved to a new city.
But were they using that timeas a temp, trying to meet people
around the organization and geta sense of what those other
roles were and how they mightfit into them, and trying to
(19:20):
build those professionalconnections?
Because that ability tounderstand that you need to
constantly be building thatprofessional network and
constantly be getting input fromothers and unpacking yourself.
If I'm hearing what this persondoes all day, is that something
I would want to do as well?
Could I see myself doing whatthis person is doing and why?
(19:40):
And if not, why not?
Can I keep going deep into myown reactions about what I'm
doing, how I'm feeling about it.
I mean, I'll go back to aspecific example of an early job
that I had.
Where was I overall happy?
No, I was not.
And I had to sit down andfigure out well, how much of
(20:01):
this is the job itself, theday-to-day?
Am I in the right career path?
And I figured out okay, I'mreally happy with that.
You know, what I'm doingday-to-day is something that's
really fulfilling to me.
So then I had to go anotherlayer and say, okay, well, does
it have something to do with myboss?
(20:21):
There's this common thing,right, people don't leave bosses
.
And I realized sort of.
But what was really happeningwas that my boss was under a lot
of pressure from hires up to dothings that didn't make sense,
and that was pushing downwardpressure on the rest of us to be
doing things that didn't makesense.
And that was pushing downwardpressure on the rest of us to be
doing things that didn't makesense.
And I ended up writing a wholepaper about this in graduate
school, about this whole dynamicand how it was playing out and
(20:44):
everything else for anorganizational behavior class.
But I think one of the thingsI'm doing when I'm meeting with
someone who feels stuck istrying to parse are you in the
wrong career or are you in thewrong organization?
Are you in the wrong functionalarea?
Are you simply working for thewrong person?
Are you getting bad direction?
So there's a lot of differentways that people can be unhappy,
(21:10):
and what can happen is, if youget really unhappy, you kind of
go on a downward spiral where itbecomes really hard to parse
all of these things, and whatI've seen often in advising is
that people will look tosomething that is the polar
opposite of what they're doingin the moment.
So I'll go back to a personalexample.
(21:31):
I mentioned that I worked foran ad agency right after college
and it was a disaster, right.
So I was so unhappy and soinexperienced I was 21.
So I started looking at thingsokay, if I hate every single
thing about my life, what is theopposite of this?
So I started interviewing for acampsite in Maine where I was
(21:54):
going to be living alone in atrailer for most of the year and
then running a family camp inMaine where I was going to be
living alone in a trailer formost of the year and then
running a family camp in thesummer.
Joe Miller (22:00):
You like to test the boundary conditions?
Sharon Belden Castonguay (22:02):
Oh, it was like yeah, and I mean I had
been a camp counselor incollege.
So I thought I'm going todouble down on the exact
opposite of what I'm doing and Iremember my father sitting me
down like we need to talk aboutthis, like really You're going
to live with a trailer 20minutes from the nearest post
office, by yourself, in themiddle of winter, like it sounds
like a Stephen King novel.
I did not end up doing that, Ijust switched jobs in Boston.
(22:24):
But I'm glad I had thatexperience only because I've
identified it so many times overthe years.
Working with, in particular,like early to mid-career clients
who come to me and say you know, I'm working with, in
particular, early to mid-careerclients who come to me and say
I'm doing this thing now andthis is what I want to be doing.
And if I see that what I wantto be doing is in every way the
(22:46):
opposite of what they're doingnow, we're going to really
unpack what's going on.
Joe Miller (22:50):
Well, it reminds me of a coaching framework question
that I ask often, and that isdo you feel like you're moving
away from something in thischange you're thinking about, or
do you feel like you're movingtowards something?
Sharon Belden Castonguay (23:07):
It's a way of it doesn't get to all
the specificity you're referringto, but it does get to sort of
the motivational aspect to, butit does get to sort of the
motivational aspect Well, andnot only that, but it's not
uncommon in job interviews forinterviewers to get really at
that exact question.
You know, when I'm coachingpeople, sometimes if they're
really desperate to get out ofwhat they're doing, they'll
(23:28):
start pushing back on some ofthe more counseling aspects of
these conversations.
Just tell me how to apply, justtell me how to get through the
interview.
One of the things I always haveto point out is, if you don't
have all this stuff sorted outin advance, you're never going
to make it through a high levelbehavioral interview with
employers, because what theyreally started looking at is not
(23:50):
only are you a good fit for us,but are we a good fit for you?
Because retention is an issuefor everybody.
You know there's a war fortalent.
We want to be able to get thebest workers, retain the best
workers, and part of that isknowing that this is a well
thought out decision on yourpart.
And if you're applying to usbecause you're reacting against
something that's happening inyour current job, that's going
(24:10):
to be a problem.
So being able to reallyarticulate, not just to me, the
career advisor, but to aninterviewer this isn't about why
I want to leave my currentemployer.
It's about why I want to bewith you.
This is a really well thoughtout decision on my part to move
into this new area.
(24:31):
That's what's going to land thejob.
Joe Miller (24:32):
Sometimes people just go with the flow and
picking their direction.
So there's just kind of tyinginto that is agency and
intention, intentionality andawareness and they kind of go
together.
And that was a reminder ofthose words as you were going
(24:52):
through that thinking process,because it's very common for
people to go with the flow.
It's very difficult in coachingsituations, which I do a fair
amount of when you ask a personwhat they want, they have never
even thought about it and itseems, and at first blush you
(25:15):
think, well, they just need helpgoing through a process.
Well, that may help, butthere's layers and layers below
that about a lot of differentthings.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (25:28):
But we've built a society around
that I mean to be.
You know, what are you going tomajor in?
What are you going to do aftergraduation?
What do you do for a living?
You know, these are things thatare kind of baked into the
ether and I think we need to ownthat too and recognize that it
actually takes some work to pushpast.
That major does not really needto dictate what I'm doing at 40.
(25:58):
Right, you know that mostpeople are going to be switching
careers.
They're going to be switchingjobs and the constant.
It's really more of a set ofhabits of mind, so that,
regardless of what is happeningin the moment, you're constantly
able to reflect back on is whatI'm doing now, working for me?
And if not, why not?
(26:21):
And that doesn't necessarilymean you're going to cut the
cord immediately and move on tosomething else, but you're going
to have really strategicreasons for staying where you
are.
So I'm not really happy in myjob, but I understand that the
money I'm making now I need tobe here for at least another
year before I pay off thisstudent loan.
Joe Miller (26:43):
Right.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (26:43):
But I know that that's the case and I
have a timeline for it and Ihave an exit strategy, right?
Joe Miller (26:49):
Right.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (26:50):
And if I'm not clear on what the next
step is, I'm going to take sometime to figure out.
Okay, what's not working for meand how can I course correct.
So maybe I love my organizationbut this particular role isn't
working for me, so I'm going totake the time to go out and
understand and learn, meet otherpeople around my organization,
(27:11):
understand what they do,understand what the career paths
might be.
And if I don't see a wayforward, I'm going to figure out
where can I get what I likeabout this?
Someplace else.
Joe Miller (27:21):
Yeah.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (27:22):
I'm not going to keep following the
path of least resistance, but itdoes take a certain amount of
mental energy to go through that.
Joe Miller (27:29):
It does need to take a willingness for
self-reflection, and that can behard.
It can be especially hard whensomeone is in the middle of a
deficit that mental energybecause of the situation.
Absolutely, the thing I wantedto chat with you about was I
believe that we focus so much onjobs types or career paths by
(27:52):
name lawyer, doctor, whateverand then, once we get out into
the workforce, we focus so muchon job titles that it seems like
we don't talk a lot aboutattributes that are part of
those paths or those titles.
And I have a belief thatthere's certain innate well
(28:16):
strengths that an individual hasbeen given gifts, strengths,
whatever you want to call it andfulfillment part of being
fulfilled in your career andyour life is really identifying
that or that constellation ofthings and trying to spend most
of your energy and time inalignment with that and those
(28:40):
constellation of gifts, if youwill, could be valuable to a
whole list of different careersor jobs.
Absolutely, sometimes the otherthing that happens you talked
about kind of what we have doneto ourselves a little bit from a
society standpoint, making thisdifficult for people but the
(29:00):
other thing happens is there'scertain expectations when you're
in a job that certain thingshave to be done in a certain way
.
I used to trick myself a littlestory.
I hated budgeting.
I was a CIO, a chiefinformation officer, and
budgeting was a big part of thatjob, but I hated it.
I'm more of an improviser.
A quick start, I'm terrible atdoing prolonged detail work and
(29:26):
that's kind of the budgeting andit took me well into my career
a third through, maybe halfwayuntil I realized that actually I
could look around on my teamand identify someone who got off
on doing that, just gotenergized by doing that kind of
work and said here I will giveit to you and I will lump all
kinds of praise on you.
(29:46):
I will.
Overall, I'll become moresuccessful because I'm going to
lean into the things that I'mreally good at and avoid it, but
I can still do the job and Ithink that can be a factor
because you can be in the middleof a job where it's not a fit.
If you understand those gifts,you can see where they might be.
(30:07):
What's your reaction to that?
Sharon Belden Castonguay (30:11):
I think it's absolutely,
incredibly important torecognize what comes easily to
you and to be leveraging that,really leaning in on the things
that not only do not comenaturally to you but that are a
(30:38):
real struggle and things thatare going to be really hard to
overcome, because everybody hasthose too.
And I'll tell a personal storyas well For me, that's
memorization and this wassomething I didn't realize how
hard that was for me untilrelatively late in the game.
I didn't realize how hard thatwas for me until relatively late
in the game.
And you know, I actually wentto college with the intention of
(30:59):
studying art history and,unbeknownst to me, one of the
first things you have to do whenyou decide on that major is or
at least that I had to do ismemorize just massive amounts of
the famous works of art.
We had something called the ArtStudy Room room and it was this
massive hallway and theybasically had put up like this
(31:20):
is pre-internet, right.
They had postcards basically ofdifferent like famous works of
art.
So you know, statue painting.
Joe Miller (31:26):
Different periods.
You know Different periods.
Who are the people in thisimpressionistic period?
Sharon Belden Castongua (31:31):
Massive survey quarters, and, you know,
before exams, you were expectedto go in and just memorize them
.
I couldn't do it.
I mean, I simply couldn't do it, and one of my takeaways from
that, though, was not only maybethis isn't the best major for
me and I did, in fact, not majorin art history but I also
realized, by extension, thatgoing to medical school or law
(31:53):
school neither of those thingsreally interested in me when I
was an undergraduate, but theyalso would have been logical
given the type of institution Iwas at and where a lot of what
my friends were headed andeverything, but I was like well,
if I can't do this, I'm nevergoing to pass the bar.
You know if I I'm never going tobe able to memorize everything
you need to memorize organicchemistry or something like that
I was going to use that example.
(32:13):
I mean, there's just no way.
Joe Miller (32:15):
Yeah.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (32:16):
Well, the earlier you figure out the
things that are never going towork for you and then look at
the things that do work for you.
So you know I figured out OKwhere are my skills.
You know, writing, presenting,being able to take a lot of
disparate ideas from differentfields and bring them together,
which is a lot when I did, likean interdisciplinary doctoral
(32:37):
program, like it's not that Iwas useless right, I had other
strengths I could be playingupon.
But knowing kind of what thesecore weaknesses were as well as
core strengths, I think the corestrengths are easier to
identify.
It really did take me a longtime to figure out exactly how
bad I was at memorization.
Joe Miller (32:57):
I just have to go back to that one, because and
you said organic chemistry myfirst career was an analytic
analochemist.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (33:04):
My husband's a computational
chemist by training.
Joe Miller (33:06):
Oh, okay, I know what that is.
I spent 10 years as ananalytical chemist Organic
chemistry is all memorizingthose key 25, I think it is
equations, reactions, yeah, yeah, so, but that's good, I mean
that's, I think, a good tool tohelp someone to get clarity
(33:30):
around.
What's a good fit is toidentify those things that are
just inordinately hard to do.
As an individual, you candevelop skills and do things
that are difficult.
We don't want to take away thatpeople shouldn't be willing to
put out effort and work tobecome more skilled, but what
we're talking about doesn't fallinto that category.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (33:51):
No, and that's exactly right,
because I think the other thingand this is why it's hard right
I'm not saying that these areeasy things You're just going to
be able to sit down and do aquick list and be done.
It really takes some payingattention to how you have
experienced different classes,different job experiences, to be
able to unpack this.
So another personal example Ididn't have great experiences
(34:15):
with math and science when I wasin high school.
I chose a college in partbecause it wasn't going to make
me take those classes, and whenI realized that I was going to
need to kind of circle back onsome quantitative stuff in order
to take the graduate exams, Iknew I'd need to take down the
road.
I went ahead and I tookcalculus my senior year in
college, but we coveredeverything I covered in high
(34:36):
school within the first fewweeks of the college class.
One of the reasons I put offtaking it was it was known as
being a really, really difficultcourse.
They had gotten a big grant towork with another university to
teach it in a very specific waythat involved computer
programming.
People who took it wereexhausted and crying and said it
was horrible.
Well, I was like all right, I'mgoing to suck it up and take it
(35:01):
.
And it was one of the easiestclasses that I took at Smith.
For me because it happened tocome easily for me and because I
always had it in my head that Ididn't have great experiences
in high school and it wassomething I didn't like, I
didn't choose to engage with ituntil it was too late to do
anything with it.
But take that one course.
It was a real learningexperience.
(35:22):
That's something I clearlyshould have taken freshman year
because I could have avoidedtaking some classes that
involved a lot of memorizationthat I didn't do as well in,
whereas if you just want me tosit down and calculate stuff or
type up some code to helpcalculate some stuff, I can do
that.
So when it kind of goes to, youdon't know really what come
(35:43):
naturally to you until youreally delve into some of these
subjects and this is why I getfrustrated when people talk
about you know.
Okay, well, when you startcollege, you know the stakes are
really high, tuition is reallyhigh.
You need to set clear goals andstick with them.
I understand why that messagingis there, given how we fund
higher education in this countryand how deeply problematic it
(36:05):
can be.
The flip side is, until youreally get your hands dirty with
different types of classes thatreally push you in new ways and
get you really thinking aboutwell, how do you know what your
interests are and how do youknow what you're good at?
Until you do start doing thingsat a higher level and get
exposed to things at a higherlevel.
Joe Miller (36:28):
Right.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (36:28):
And the same is, then, true for when
you start in the work world,you know how you think about
making these transitions downthe road.
It's not about making adramatic shift from art history
to banking right.
It's about what are some ofthose subtler changes, those
transition changes that you cankind of kick the tires on.
(36:49):
Well, what is it about thisthat isn't working for me, and
what about that new thing thatcould be?
Joe Miller (36:56):
There's a lot there, and you reminded me of this
kind of the journey aspect ofthis whole topic and how it
isn't like one linear path fromstart to finish.
Well, let me just say that Ithink there's at least three
phases in my experience.
People go through, and they gothrough it multiple different
times and many times, and,rather than a line, maybe it's a
(37:23):
circle, and you start out withsome kind of a clarification
phase or a discovery phase of.
This is what I think I want todo.
Whether it's at the verybeginning you're in high school
or whatever you take your bestshot at it from all different
sources and then you go into anexecution process where you've
launched out, You're investingtime, energy, dollars and you're
(37:45):
going down that path and you gothrough this execution phase
for a good while.
Then you're starting to lookand say, okay, I'm getting sort
of into an intermediate skilllevel of what I'm doing, and
then you start moving into whatI call the mastery phase, where
you're starting to really getadvanced.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (38:06):
Right.
Joe Miller (38:07):
And that sort of.
Somewhere in that advancedperiod you're starting to say to
yourself what's next and so yougo around the loop back into I
want to clarify what I want todo next.
Or you know, this was all greatbut I want more.
I often talk to people who arekind of in the middle part.
You know they've reached somechallenges in the execution,
(38:30):
moving into mastery phase.
They're not seeing rewards,either intrinsically or from the
outside validation of whatthey've done or their
contribution, not feeling likethey're really flourishing.
Now they're starting to just gointo sort of a discovery phase
again and people can go aroundthat period.
But you're not a failure and welaugh.
(38:58):
But sometimes people feel likeeven having a thought of
changing a direction is like theworst possible thing.
Then I must have made a mistake,right.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (39:08):
Yeah, I'm actually teaching a course
next year called Success andFailure, and one of the
takeaways that I hope studentstake is you know something that
is a small scale failure youdon't do well in a course or you
realize that you've always saidyou were going to be a doctor
and now you're realizing that'snot a path you want to take or
(39:30):
should take or can't takebecause you failed organic M or
whatever.
This doesn't mean youpersonally are a failure, can't
take because you failed organicM or whatever.
This doesn't mean youpersonally are a failure.
Life is just these ebb and flowsof things that are going to go
your way and things that are not.
And it's your ability to beresilient and it's your ability
to unpack, okay, what happenedhere and what is under my
(39:50):
control it was that agency pieceand what is not and how can I
navigate my way through it.
You know these are life skills,right, that everybody has to
learn, and I think that ifyou've been sort of successfully
on a path of least resistanceand what I mean by that is
there's been no kind of externalforce that's pushed you off of
(40:12):
that then it may be, you know,you might be doing this at 45
instead of 25.
And you know I like to sayyou're going to have to do the
work sometimes and you know, abig part of the reason I went
back to working withundergraduates is to try to
let's nip it in the bud now.
If you can force students to doit before they do, they're less
likely to wake up when theyhave a mortgage and two kids in
(40:34):
college with a realization thatthey're feeling stuck and
unhappy.
But that also it goes to thehabits of mind, because what
you're identifying as well ispeople can be happy and
fulfilled for a certain periodof time and then realize that
they're not right Becausethey're bored.
They've been doing the samething for a while and needing to
kind of hit the restart buttonin new ways.
(40:55):
But I think if you, early on orat some point along the line,
have developed those habits ofmind to be constantly taking
your own temperature, when youget to that point where you're
starting to get bored and you'restarting to think this isn't
really working for me anymore,you have those tools at your
disposal to be really thinkingthrough.
(41:16):
Okay, well, if I want to thinkabout other options, what might
those be?
Who do I need to talk to to getmore information?
What is realistic given mycurrent family situation,
financial situation,particularly if you're looking
at doing this at midlife andyou're able to kind of weather
that storm more easily, you'vepoured a stronger foundation.
(41:40):
So when the hurricane hits thewhole house isn't going away.
Joe Miller (41:43):
Built on the rock.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (41:43):
I grew up on an island, so I use the
hurricane analogy For those whohave gone along with that path
of least resistance.
Well, both my parents weredoctors so I became a doctor and
it was fine.
I didn't have problems withorganic chemistry and I got
through medical school and I wasfine seeing my patients.
But now I'm incredibly bored.
(42:05):
I'm going through the motions.
I think my patients arestarting to see that.
But now I have a successfulpractice and I hate getting up
in the morning but I don't knowwhat to do.
Joe Miller (42:14):
That's hard keep getting up in the morning but I
don't know what to do.
That's hard and, as we talkedabout early on, things change in
the external world and what itused to be like to be a doctor
and what the healthcare the wayit is these days.
I probably have five or sixdoctors that I know who have
left conventional medicinebecause it is a rat race,
(42:38):
Absolutely, and you have toshrink the amount of time you
spend with your patients.
All those things we all knowabout.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (42:44):
Well, and the debt that you know if
we're working with now that arelooking at medical school.
You know the level of debt thatyou're coming out with.
Medical school is reallyextreme and I think you know
this is where I talk to studentsa lot about when they're
focusing on these kind ofhistorically prestigious careers
and unpacking where thatinterest is coming from.
(43:05):
And, to be clear with somestudents, it is actually very
well thought out and they knowexactly why they want to do it
and they've shadowed people inthe specialties that they're
interested in, in both law andmedicine or engineering or what
have you, and it is awell-thought out decision.
I'm not saying this isuniversal.
I'm not trying to badmouth theprofession, sure, but what I do
find interesting is sometimesit's the student whose parents
are like well, both my parentsare doctors.
(43:27):
They're telling me not to be adoctor, they're telling me not
to be a lawyer because they'veseen what these changes are,
because they've seen what thesechanges are right Influence
that's coming into that decision.
It's based on outdatedinformation.
I was actually having thisconversation relatively recently
with a student who wasinterested in coming in saying I
want to go to law school.
So we started talking aboutthat and what came out was that
(43:51):
a parent had felt reallystrongly that this was a good,
solid, stable profession whereshe could make money and support
herself without having to relyon a spouse down the road, and
that was a core value for thatparent.
And I said I understand thatI'm a parent.
I completely appreciate that.
Let me explain why law isprobably not the best way to
accomplish that.
(44:12):
You know the average law schooldebt is six figures.
You know the average salary fora lawyer is not.
If you really start unpackingall of the data, I said no.
If you decide that you know youdo all of the work in terms of
figuring out exactly what thisis, what's the path forward.
You know the courses thatyou're going to want to take to
(44:34):
get some exposure.
You're going to talk to someattorneys, you're going to work
as a paralegal or in some otherrole right after graduation and
you decide this is what you wantto do.
Yes, our institution has areally strong history of getting
students into top law schoolswho then make really good
salaries, but let's make surethat's really what you want
first, because this is a veryunstable profession in a way
(44:55):
that it was not.
Joe Miller (45:00):
Well, maybe your parents were coming up, yeah,
and we picked a couple differentcareers that are very well
known.
I often advise people to, ifthey have a thought that they
might want to make a change,that they line up informational
interviews at least as an earlystart, to have a conversation,
to check their assumptions onwhat things are like and
establish relationships as welland the network.
(45:23):
But it gets back to that agencyand back to that taking things
really seriously andintentionally and really working
at getting that clarity.
That's a key piece.
Really working at getting thatclarity, that's a key piece.
Well, so I think we've talkedabout a number of different
(45:43):
things, but if you were to kindof summarize and I know this can
be difficult because there's somany different factors of some
key lessons learned, some keyconcepts that you would want to
sort of highlight, what wouldthose items be key?
Sharon Belden Castongu (45:57):
concepts that you would want to sort of
highlight.
What would those items be?
Well, just to recognize thatthis is a skill learning the
habits of mind that you need tohave to be able to navigate a
turbulent job market, regardlessof your chosen profession or
industry, of your chosenprofession or industry that is a
(46:20):
skill in of itself.
So, in other words, justchoosing something and trying to
follow it along as a careerpath isn't enough anymore.
It's really important to learnhow to be thinking about.
What is my exit strategy?
What is my plan B?
What might be the next thingI'm going to want to do?
Am I taking my temperature onhow this is working for me?
Am I also taking thetemperature on my industry so I
(46:42):
can think about?
Am I likely to get laid off inthe next six months?
These are all habits of mind,both intrinsic and extrinsic,
that I think are reallyimportant to navigate and manage
one's career, regardless ofwhat that profession or industry
is.
So that is what I hope would be.
A big takeaway from this isthat this is something else
(47:04):
that's important for not onlyfor students, yes, but for
everybody to learn and that canbe learned.
Joe Miller (47:12):
And where do people go to folks like you?
I mean, you're not available tothe entire country or world,
but money off of it.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (47:18):
We put it out there under the Wesleyan
name.
It's a massive, open onlinecourse so anybody can take it
all over the world, and it'sreally designed not as a writing
(47:43):
a resume or going on a jobinterview it's not practical in
that sense, but it's a deeperdive into helping people figure
out.
You know, who am I?
What do I want out of life,what is working for me, what is
not?
How can I unpack all of thoseinfluences that are affecting my
decision-making?
I think of it as kind of aflipped classroom on an advising
process, so if you go throughall of the exercises in the
(48:05):
course, you may find that youknow what I think I got this.
I don't necessarily need to sitdown with a professional
counselor to work these thingsout.
If you happen to be in theStates and have attended college
here, though, and you'relooking for the one-on-one, I do
encourage people to go back totheir alma maters, because you
might be pleasantly surprisedthat a lot of universities do
(48:27):
offer either discounted or freesessions through their career
centers or through outsideproviders that they've
contracted with to provide lowercost career advising for alumni
.
Joe Miller (48:40):
That's great.
Well, I have to say this hasbeen a real pleasure and I
wanted to thank you for comingon my podcast YouTube channel.
For those listening or watching, I will put information in the
show notes that Sharon referredto for this online course,
information in the show notesthat Sharon referred to for this
(49:01):
online course, and I willencourage you to go to her talks
on TEDx and check them out.
It was really really goodmaterial and, I think, very
inspiring in many ways.
So thanks again, sharon, forbeing on the show.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (49:11):
Thank you very much for having me.
Joe Miller (49:13):
Okay, hey, thanks for joining me today on Titans
of Transition.
I hope you enjoyed the episode.
Please check the show notes foradditional information.
It's absolutely incredibly important
to recognize what comes easilyto you and to be leveraging that
, really leaning in on thethings that you're uniquely good
at, because that's what's goingto differentiate you in any
market, within any profession.
Joe Miller (00:16):
Sharon, I'm so glad to have you on Titans of
Transition.
I saw your TED Talk and reallyresonated with the points you
made.
Saw your TED Talk and reallyresonated with the points you
made.
I really am interested in thewhole process of people becoming
fulfilled in their choice oftheir career direction and that
whole journey people get on.
(00:36):
In your TED Talk you talkedabout how messy that process can
be and you also brought in thewhole idea of identity and how
we form those identities and howthey're not static.
I just thought, wow, this is agreat talk, really added a lot
to my understanding.
So I wanted to have you on sowe could unpack that.
(00:57):
So again, welcome.
so much for having me.
It's been really gratifying tosee over the years how the talk
has resonated with so many.
I've had like three careers and I see that you've
made some kind of major shiftsas well, and we'll definitely
(01:28):
want to touch on those.
I thought maybe another twistwe might want to take at this,
or another approach, is that wewould bring in some of those key
lessons earlier in ourdiscussion.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat you're doing now and how
you landed on that.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (01:43):
Well, so what I do now is I'm the
executive director of the CareerCenter at Wesleyan University,
which is a highly selective,small liberal arts college in
Connecticut, and I attended asmall liberal arts college as
well.
So in some ways it was comingfull circle and even though I
had spent most of my careerdevelopment career working with
(02:06):
folks who were older so graduatestudents, jds, mbas, people who
were often a lot in their 20sbut I also worked with plenty of
people who were in their 20s,30s, 40s, 50s, getting close to
retirement, and I had aninterest in going back to
working with undergraduates, inpart because I remembered keenly
(02:28):
what my own experience was liketransitioning from a liberal
arts college into the work world, and at the time I graduated,
during a terrible economy wheneverybody was struggling, my dad
was a banker and that wassomething that appealed to me.
So I thought what are theoptions for someone coming out
(02:50):
of this type of institution?
And I knew I didn't want to bein New York, so that cut off a
huge part of the sector, right?
So you're not going to do thekind of big Wall Street finance
if you don't want to be in NewYork.
I was looking at Boston andjust the job market was terrible
.
And I ended up landing in anadvertising agency, in part
(03:11):
because I had kind of creativebent and I thought that might be
an interesting thing to do.
I was interested in copywriting.
There was another Smith grad,someone who graduated a year
ahead of me, who was already atthe agency, who spoke highly of
it and you know, long storyshort, it was a complete
disaster.
I mean, I lasted eight monthsin the position but there was a
(03:37):
lot of lessons learned from thatand you know, one of them was
sort of thinking about how muchexperimentation do you sometimes
need to do after you graduatefrom college?
So to answer your question, youknow how did I get involved in
this kind of work?
It was because by the time Iwas in my late 20s I had already
(03:58):
had several careers and gotinterested in working with
people on those careertransitions and that eventually
ended up coming full circle towhat I'm doing now.
Joe Miller (04:13):
So it's kind of like a matter or a process of trying
things on.
I mean, you do the best you canto sort of discern the path
that's best for you, either therole or the nature of what you
will be doing, but until youreally try it on, you don't
really know.
And I think there's a processor something people go through
(04:35):
where they try to hang on tothings that aren't particularly
a good fit for quite a while,and then there's this sort of
friction or I call thisdissonance that goes on.
And then there's this sort offriction or I call this
dissonance that goes on and youknow they feel almost like they
should be.
There's something wrong withthem or something wrong with you
.
If you're in the middle of this, because you think, well, this
(04:55):
is what I'm supposed to be doing, why am I not enjoying it?
Why do I feel exhausted?
Why, you know why am Iunfulfilled?
Why do I feel exhausted?
Why, you know why am Iunfulfilled?
Sharon Belden Castonguay (05:13):
Kind of what I got from your talk and
is you know, this is kind of anatural process, right, and you
have to keep in mind that howsociety is set up and I don't
even just mean American society,you know, how we as humans, you
know, have set up our societyin terms of training young
people to enter the work worldis often at odds with how we're
actually experiencing thatprocess and healthy for us to do
(05:34):
in terms of figuring out whatis a good fit For most of human
history.
People did what their parentsdid.
You know, if your father was afarmer and you were male, you
went into farming and women keptup whatever that home looked
like.
That kind of thing is stilltrue in many parts of the world.
(05:55):
And when you start looking at,ok, now we're moving to an
industrial society, people mightnot be doing exactly what their
parents did.
You were still going to behighly influenced by what they
were doing, if not literally bytheir profession and following
in someone's footsteps, but byall of the societal roles that
(06:16):
you've now been plugged into byvirtue of your social class,
your gender, where you live.
There's all of these factors,right, that play into that and
the way.
Even now, like you know, fastforward to now when people talk
about you know, how do we getyoung people prepared for the
work world?
It's getting them to okay.
Well, they need to set goals.
(06:41):
They need to set goals early sothat they're on the right
educational paths or they'retaking the right classes,
they're getting the righttraining so that they can enter
something that is going to befulfilling for them and what
society actually needs.
And there's two big problemswith it that are often not quite
captured right.
One is that what society needsis a constantly moving target.
I often tell, like incomingfirst-year students I don't know
(07:04):
what the jobs are going to bewhen you graduate.
Nobody does.
I've been doing this fordecades.
Right, so that constantlyneeding to adapt and be prepared
to be constantly changingwhatever it is you're doing, so
that's a huge piece of it thatis constantly a problem.
The other problem that is, in acertain way, if we do it right,
(07:24):
fixed by the first one, is thatpeople don't know what they
want to do until they startdoing it.
So you know, if you're askingpeople to think about when
they're in middle school, youknow my daughter just finished
middle school.
People are already asking herwhat are you going to do?
What are you going to focus onin high school?
Cause you got to get ready forcollege.
You know she's like how shouldI know?
(07:47):
13 years old.
And there are some countries andI think this is why my talk has
resonated around the world Ihear frequently from people in
countries where they're beingforced by their educational
systems to be making decisionsfairly early on on what
educational tracks they're goingto take in ways that may feel
like they make sense for thatlocal society, that local
culture, the local government interms of making sure that
positions are filled.
But if you're asking someone atan early age to make decisions
(08:10):
that are effectively going todictate what they're doing 10,
20 years later, that can cause alot of dissatisfaction once
somebody's in their 20s and isactually starting to work in
these positions, especially ifthey're feeling trapped Like
I've been educated in this onething and I don't have an easy
way of re-educating myself insomething else.
So I think that if you have theprivilege of the free society
(08:38):
and specifically, am I gettingwhat I need to be getting out of
what I'm doing now?
And if I'm not, what do I needto be learning to shift to
something else and how can I?
be constantly thinking aboutthat.
Joe Miller (08:49):
I think, as well-intentioned parents want to
try to identify the path orhelp your child identify their
path.
Because it's so highlycompetitive, that decision point
seems to be moved further andfurther in.
So now there's a whole phase ofoptimizing the preparation
(09:11):
process before you even get outof high school, to make sure
that you've had obviously allthe right coursework but also
all the other factors that wouldbe considered if you want to
get into a specific college, tokeep you on track for a specific
career, that sort of thing.
So not enough time forexperimentation.
The experimentation processtends to happen after the commit
(09:32):
process quite a bit.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (09:34):
True in some respects.
I think that one thing that'simportant to keep in mind is
there's only a relatively smallslice of American universities
that are really so selectivethat you need to be really you
know, at the top of everythingyou're trying to do when you're
in high school to get in, andWesleyan, the school I work for,
is one of those institutions.
(09:55):
Right, we admit fewer than 20%of students in a typical year
and the students who we do admitare very, very high achieving
Right, but it's not that we'reexpecting them to sign on the
dotted line that they're allspecific on something like a
specific type of engineering.
(10:28):
There's some outlier exampleswhere that would be more true,
but in general, what we'rereally looking for is an
academic prowess and interest,rather than a narrow career
interest.
I'm not saying there aren't,but I think that like if I were
talking to my daughter, who isjust starting high school,
unless you are reallyspecifically I am.
(10:52):
So I've always been fascinatedby airplanes.
I want to major in aerospaceengineering.
I have never questioned thatpath.
I absolutely know that's what Iwant.
Well then, yeah, guidingyourself through a high school
path that's going to get you tothat college path, get you to
that career path, that makessense.
I find that that kind ofcertainty, even in one's 20s, is
(11:14):
very rare.
Joe Miller (11:15):
It is.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (11:16):
I mean the talking.
The talk is not rare.
You talk to a lot of highschool students, a lot of
college students who are able tosay all the right things
because they've been kind oftrained and taught and
acculturated that that's whatthey're supposed to do.
Someone asks you what do youwant to do when you grow up?
You give a really fancy answerI want to be a surgeon.
(11:37):
And then you get reallypositive feedback from adults
that you want to be a surgeon.
So you continue to say you wantto be a surgeon and then
suddenly you're a junior incollege and you're going through
the motions.
Joe Miller (11:52):
You have no idea.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (11:52):
If you want to be a surgeon, right,
yeah, you know when we'reworking with students now our
health professions advisor.
If there's a student who wantsto be a surgeon, okay.
Well, have you gotten EMTtraining?
Go be an EMT for a while.
Do you really like blood andguts?
Joe Miller (12:03):
You don't know until you know, right Right right and
you don't have a sort of fullknowledge set of what that
really is.
The idea of it's a littleseparated from the reality of it
.
So we've been talking quite abit right now about sort of the
external factors, if you will,or influences maybe might be a
(12:24):
better word.
You talked about historicallygoing way back.
You did what your father did oryour family did.
Even names, like my name isMiller, although it actually was
Mueller and changed to German,but there are people who expect
you to be involved with millinggrain or something which is
(12:48):
interesting.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (12:49):
Well, why Smith is the most popular
last name Black.
Joe Miller (12:52):
Smith Like a.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (12:53):
Smith, you were doing something right?
Joe Miller (12:55):
Yes, exactly, but there's also, I think, other
things that come into play.
You mentioned lawyer or surgeonor doctor, picking things that
have that moniker of successfinancial independence that
everyone would want to have.
(13:15):
So it's almost like you haveall these different things
you're trying to optimize for,and sometimes those things get
weighted differently dependingupon your upbringing or your
influences.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (13:29):
Well, there's upbringing and
influences, and there's alsovisibility.
Joe Miller (13:32):
Tell me more about that, yeah.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (13:34):
So one of the reasons why medicine and
law are perennially popular arebecause people know, or they
think they know, what a lawyerdoes, because they watch lawyers
on TV, even if they don't haveone in the family or something.
Right, they feel like they knowwhat a lawyer does and
typically they've been to thedoctor at some point, so they
(13:56):
understand what a doctor does orthey think they understand,
right At least maybe, what apediatrician or a primary care
physician you know.
They have a sense of what thatday-to-day is.
And it's why teaching is alsooften popular, right, because
you've had teachers and you havea sense of what a teacher does.
So things that are visible arealways popular because people
(14:20):
feel like, well, I know whatthat is and that's something I
can see myself doing, which isgreat up to a point.
The problem is that you don'treally know what all types of
doctors do, what all types oflawyers do.
You don't know what everybodyelse does, so most people you're
not going to see what all ofthese other things are.
(14:40):
So, like somebody who works incybersecurity, right, what
exactly does that involve?
Like, I can see a doctor, I cansee a teacher, I can't see a
cybersecurity specialist, let'ssay but I'm reading in the media
that I'll always have a job ifI go into that.
So then you do get actuallythings that become popular
because it seems safe and secure.
(15:01):
And I think that's an importantother layer here, because law
and medicine remain popularbecause they feel safe and
stable and prestigious, andthose don't kind of go together.
So the problem being thatthat's all kind of falling apart
, that in you know now there isno such thing as safe and stable
.
Joe Miller (15:20):
Yeah, so that's, that's trying to chase that.
Yeah, that's a good one.
So I mean, you kind of touchedon we touched on the
significance kind of view ofthings, where certain things
that you see that are visible,have that maybe we didn't unpack
that too much but societal sortof affirmation of those careers
(15:41):
, of those careers.
So there's the significancefactor this is really getting
pop psychology here and thenthere's the security and those
two things kind of bouncing backand forth and trying to get
both at the same time.
You know, might be one way oflooking at this.
But the other thing I wanted totalk about is the overall
(16:04):
journey of this and, as you said, you engage a lot with people
who are starting out, but quitea bit of people who are well
into their careers, that arewell into their journey, that
need clarity and it'sinteresting.
I'd like to unpack that a littlebit.
And maybe there's examples fromthe transitions you've gone
(16:24):
through too.
Let's say, someone had done thebest they can to pick a career
path, they've gone through aneducational track and maybe
they've gotten a degree, they'vegotten out and gotten their
first job or so, but now they'rekind of questioning or they're
thinking about a change.
So talk a little bit about thatand your experience with that
(16:47):
and how you've helped othersthrough that process.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (16:50):
Yeah, yeah, with somebody who is
starting on that process ofthinking about a change, a lot
of what I'm doing in thatconversation it's almost like a
physician doing a diagnostic,you know, getting a sense of
what their whole history hasbeen with decision making.
You know, how did they go aboutmaking that choice of, say,
(17:12):
where to go to school, how theygot into the first job, the
second job, the third job andthe extent to which that they
were following a path of leastresistance versus making really
conscious choices, and to whatextent I see a pattern in their
ability to really reflect on,during the course of their
(17:36):
career, how they were makingthose transitions.
They've already made.
And this was something I saw alot when I was actually doing my
dissertation research, that Iwent out and interviewed a bunch
of people who were all very.
They were successful on paper,they went to good schools, they
had good jobs, they were all.
They looked successful.
But when you actually startedtalking to them there was a
(17:58):
subset who really had nevergotten off the path of least
resistance.
You know they had maybe takenthe first job because mom knew
somebody at the company and thenthey were good at it and even
though they didn't particularlylike it.
They kept getting raises andpromotions and then suddenly
they had a mortgage and two kidsand there was never a point
(18:20):
where things got so bad thatthey felt like they had to leave
.
But they've never beenparticularly satisfied either.
Joe Miller (18:27):
So things were sort of comfortable, but they hadn't
had a major challenge to getthem into that sort of mindset
of.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (18:37):
Right Of really having, and I find
that the people who really weresatisfied with their careers are
the ones who really never letthemselves fall into that path
of least resistance.
They may have taken jobs hereand there because they needed to
pay off the loans or, you know,for whatever reason, but even
if they were in a position thatwas not a good fit, they were
(18:57):
actively trying to work theirway out of it.
So, for instance, it was commonback at the time that these
folks graduated from college totempt for a while where they
were trying to find a full-timeposition, particularly if they
just moved to a new city.
But were they using that timeas a temp, trying to meet people
around the organization and geta sense of what those other
roles were and how they mightfit into them, and trying to
(19:20):
build those professionalconnections?
Because that ability tounderstand that you need to
constantly be building thatprofessional network and
constantly be getting input fromothers and unpacking yourself.
If I'm hearing what this persondoes all day, is that something
I would want to do as well?
Could I see myself doing whatthis person is doing and why?
(19:40):
And if not, why not?
Can I keep going deep into myown reactions about what I'm
doing, how I'm feeling about it.
I mean, I'll go back to aspecific example of an early job
that I had.
Where was I overall happy?
No, I was not.
And I had to sit down andfigure out well, how much of
(20:01):
this is the job itself, theday-to-day?
Am I in the right career path?
And I figured out okay, I'mreally happy with that.
You know, what I'm doingday-to-day is something that's
really fulfilling to me.
So then I had to go anotherlayer and say, okay, well, does
it have something to do with myboss?
(20:21):
There's this common thing,right, people don't leave bosses
.
And I realized sort of.
But what was really happeningwas that my boss was under a lot
of pressure from hires up to dothings that didn't make sense,
and that was pushing downwardpressure on the rest of us to be
doing things that didn't makesense.
And that was pushing downwardpressure on the rest of us to be
doing things that didn't makesense.
And I ended up writing a wholepaper about this in graduate
school, about this whole dynamicand how it was playing out and
(20:44):
everything else for anorganizational behavior class.
But I think one of the thingsI'm doing when I'm meeting with
someone who feels stuck istrying to parse are you in the
wrong career or are you in thewrong organization?
Are you in the wrong functionalarea?
Are you simply working for thewrong person?
Are you getting bad direction?
So there's a lot of differentways that people can be unhappy,
(21:10):
and what can happen is, if youget really unhappy, you kind of
go on a downward spiral where itbecomes really hard to parse
all of these things, and whatI've seen often in advising is
that people will look tosomething that is the polar
opposite of what they're doingin the moment.
So I'll go back to a personalexample.
(21:31):
I mentioned that I worked foran ad agency right after college
and it was a disaster, right.
So I was so unhappy and soinexperienced I was 21.
So I started looking at thingsokay, if I hate every single
thing about my life, what is theopposite of this?
So I started interviewing for acampsite in Maine where I was
(21:54):
going to be living alone in atrailer for most of the year and
then running a family camp inMaine where I was going to be
living alone in a trailer formost of the year and then
running a family camp in thesummer.
Joe Miller (22:00):
You like to test the boundary conditions?
Sharon Belden Castonguay (22:02):
Oh, it was like yeah, and I mean I had
been a camp counselor incollege.
So I thought I'm going todouble down on the exact
opposite of what I'm doing and Iremember my father sitting me
down like we need to talk aboutthis, like really You're going
to live with a trailer 20minutes from the nearest post
office, by yourself, in themiddle of winter, like it sounds
like a Stephen King novel.
I did not end up doing that, Ijust switched jobs in Boston.
(22:24):
But I'm glad I had thatexperience only because I've
identified it so many times overthe years.
Working with, in particular,like early to mid-career clients
who come to me and say you know, I'm working with, in
particular, early to mid-careerclients who come to me and say
I'm doing this thing now andthis is what I want to be doing.
And if I see that what I wantto be doing is in every way the
(22:46):
opposite of what they're doingnow, we're going to really
unpack what's going on.
Joe Miller (22:50):
Well, it reminds me of a coaching framework question
that I ask often, and that isdo you feel like you're moving
away from something in thischange you're thinking about, or
do you feel like you're movingtowards something?
Sharon Belden Castonguay (23:07):
It's a way of it doesn't get to all
the specificity you're referringto, but it does get to sort of
the motivational aspect to, butit does get to sort of the
motivational aspect Well, andnot only that, but it's not
uncommon in job interviews forinterviewers to get really at
that exact question.
You know, when I'm coachingpeople, sometimes if they're
really desperate to get out ofwhat they're doing, they'll
(23:28):
start pushing back on some ofthe more counseling aspects of
these conversations.
Just tell me how to apply, justtell me how to get through the
interview.
One of the things I always haveto point out is, if you don't
have all this stuff sorted outin advance, you're never going
to make it through a high levelbehavioral interview with
employers, because what theyreally started looking at is not
(23:50):
only are you a good fit for us,but are we a good fit for you?
Because retention is an issuefor everybody.
You know there's a war fortalent.
We want to be able to get thebest workers, retain the best
workers, and part of that isknowing that this is a well
thought out decision on yourpart.
And if you're applying to usbecause you're reacting against
something that's happening inyour current job, that's going
(24:10):
to be a problem.
So being able to reallyarticulate, not just to me, the
career advisor, but to aninterviewer this isn't about why
I want to leave my currentemployer.
It's about why I want to bewith you.
This is a really well thoughtout decision on my part to move
into this new area.
(24:31):
That's what's going to land thejob.
Joe Miller (24:32):
Sometimes people just go with the flow and
picking their direction.
So there's just kind of tyinginto that is agency and
intention, intentionality andawareness and they kind of go
together.
And that was a reminder ofthose words as you were going
(24:52):
through that thinking process,because it's very common for
people to go with the flow.
It's very difficult in coachingsituations, which I do a fair
amount of when you ask a personwhat they want, they have never
even thought about it and itseems, and at first blush you
(25:15):
think, well, they just need helpgoing through a process.
Well, that may help, butthere's layers and layers below
that about a lot of differentthings.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (25:28):
But we've built a society around
that I mean to be.
You know, what are you going tomajor in?
What are you going to do aftergraduation?
What do you do for a living?
You know, these are things thatare kind of baked into the
ether and I think we need to ownthat too and recognize that it
actually takes some work to pushpast.
That major does not really needto dictate what I'm doing at 40.
(25:58):
Right, you know that mostpeople are going to be switching
careers.
They're going to be switchingjobs and the constant.
It's really more of a set ofhabits of mind, so that,
regardless of what is happeningin the moment, you're constantly
able to reflect back on is whatI'm doing now, working for me?
And if not, why not?
(26:21):
And that doesn't necessarilymean you're going to cut the
cord immediately and move on tosomething else, but you're going
to have really strategicreasons for staying where you
are.
So I'm not really happy in myjob, but I understand that the
money I'm making now I need tobe here for at least another
year before I pay off thisstudent loan.
Joe Miller (26:43):
Right.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (26:43):
But I know that that's the case and I
have a timeline for it and Ihave an exit strategy, right?
Joe Miller (26:49):
Right.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (26:50):
And if I'm not clear on what the next
step is, I'm going to take sometime to figure out.
Okay, what's not working for meand how can I course correct.
So maybe I love my organizationbut this particular role isn't
working for me, so I'm going totake the time to go out and
understand and learn, meet otherpeople around my organization,
(27:11):
understand what they do,understand what the career paths
might be.
And if I don't see a wayforward, I'm going to figure out
where can I get what I likeabout this?
Someplace else.
Joe Miller (27:21):
Yeah.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (27:22):
I'm not going to keep following the
path of least resistance, but itdoes take a certain amount of
mental energy to go through that.
Joe Miller (27:29):
It does need to take a willingness for
self-reflection, and that can behard.
It can be especially hard whensomeone is in the middle of a
deficit that mental energybecause of the situation.
Absolutely, the thing I wantedto chat with you about was I
believe that we focus so much onjobs types or career paths by
(27:52):
name lawyer, doctor, whateverand then, once we get out into
the workforce, we focus so muchon job titles that it seems like
we don't talk a lot aboutattributes that are part of
those paths or those titles.
And I have a belief thatthere's certain innate well
(28:16):
strengths that an individual hasbeen given gifts, strengths,
whatever you want to call it andfulfillment part of being
fulfilled in your career andyour life is really identifying
that or that constellation ofthings and trying to spend most
of your energy and time inalignment with that and those
(28:40):
constellation of gifts, if youwill, could be valuable to a
whole list of different careersor jobs.
Absolutely, sometimes the otherthing that happens you talked
about kind of what we have doneto ourselves a little bit from a
society standpoint, making thisdifficult for people but the
(29:00):
other thing happens is there'scertain expectations when you're
in a job that certain thingshave to be done in a certain way
.
I used to trick myself a littlestory.
I hated budgeting.
I was a CIO, a chiefinformation officer, and
budgeting was a big part of thatjob, but I hated it.
I'm more of an improviser.
A quick start, I'm terrible atdoing prolonged detail work and
(29:26):
that's kind of the budgeting andit took me well into my career
a third through, maybe halfwayuntil I realized that actually I
could look around on my teamand identify someone who got off
on doing that, just gotenergized by doing that kind of
work and said here I will giveit to you and I will lump all
kinds of praise on you.
(29:46):
I will.
Overall, I'll become moresuccessful because I'm going to
lean into the things that I'mreally good at and avoid it, but
I can still do the job and Ithink that can be a factor
because you can be in the middleof a job where it's not a fit.
If you understand those gifts,you can see where they might be.
(30:07):
What's your reaction to that?
Sharon Belden Castonguay (30:11):
I think it's absolutely,
incredibly important torecognize what comes easily to
you and to be leveraging that,really leaning in on the things
that not only do not comenaturally to you but that are a
(30:38):
real struggle and things thatare going to be really hard to
overcome, because everybody hasthose too.
And I'll tell a personal storyas well For me, that's
memorization and this wassomething I didn't realize how
hard that was for me untilrelatively late in the game.
I didn't realize how hard thatwas for me until relatively late
in the game.
And you know, I actually wentto college with the intention of
(30:59):
studying art history and,unbeknownst to me, one of the
first things you have to do whenyou decide on that major is or
at least that I had to do ismemorize just massive amounts of
the famous works of art.
We had something called the ArtStudy Room room and it was this
massive hallway and theybasically had put up like this
(31:20):
is pre-internet, right.
They had postcards basically ofdifferent like famous works of
art.
So you know, statue painting.
Joe Miller (31:26):
Different periods.
You know Different periods.
Who are the people in thisimpressionistic period?
Sharon Belden Castongua (31:31):
Massive survey quarters, and, you know,
before exams, you were expectedto go in and just memorize them
.
I couldn't do it.
I mean, I simply couldn't do it, and one of my takeaways from
that, though, was not only maybethis isn't the best major for
me and I did, in fact, not majorin art history but I also
realized, by extension, thatgoing to medical school or law
(31:53):
school neither of those thingsreally interested in me when I
was an undergraduate, but theyalso would have been logical
given the type of institution Iwas at and where a lot of what
my friends were headed andeverything, but I was like well,
if I can't do this, I'm nevergoing to pass the bar.
You know if I I'm never going tobe able to memorize everything
you need to memorize organicchemistry or something like that
I was going to use that example.
(32:13):
I mean, there's just no way.
Joe Miller (32:15):
Yeah.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (32:16):
Well, the earlier you figure out the
things that are never going towork for you and then look at
the things that do work for you.
So you know I figured out OKwhere are my skills.
You know, writing, presenting,being able to take a lot of
disparate ideas from differentfields and bring them together,
which is a lot when I did, likean interdisciplinary doctoral
(32:37):
program, like it's not that Iwas useless right, I had other
strengths I could be playingupon.
But knowing kind of what thesecore weaknesses were as well as
core strengths, I think the corestrengths are easier to
identify.
It really did take me a longtime to figure out exactly how
bad I was at memorization.
Joe Miller (32:57):
I just have to go back to that one, because and
you said organic chemistry myfirst career was an analytic
analochemist.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (33:04):
My husband's a computational
chemist by training.
Joe Miller (33:06):
Oh, okay, I know what that is.
I spent 10 years as ananalytical chemist Organic
chemistry is all memorizingthose key 25, I think it is
equations, reactions, yeah, yeah, so, but that's good, I mean
that's, I think, a good tool tohelp someone to get clarity
(33:30):
around.
What's a good fit is toidentify those things that are
just inordinately hard to do.
As an individual, you candevelop skills and do things
that are difficult.
We don't want to take away thatpeople shouldn't be willing to
put out effort and work tobecome more skilled, but what
we're talking about doesn't fallinto that category.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (33:51):
No, and that's exactly right,
because I think the other thingand this is why it's hard right
I'm not saying that these areeasy things You're just going to
be able to sit down and do aquick list and be done.
It really takes some payingattention to how you have
experienced different classes,different job experiences, to be
able to unpack this.
So another personal example Ididn't have great experiences
(34:15):
with math and science when I wasin high school.
I chose a college in partbecause it wasn't going to make
me take those classes, and whenI realized that I was going to
need to kind of circle back onsome quantitative stuff in order
to take the graduate exams, Iknew I'd need to take down the
road.
I went ahead and I tookcalculus my senior year in
college, but we coveredeverything I covered in high
(34:36):
school within the first fewweeks of the college class.
One of the reasons I put offtaking it was it was known as
being a really, really difficultcourse.
They had gotten a big grant towork with another university to
teach it in a very specific waythat involved computer
programming.
People who took it wereexhausted and crying and said it
was horrible.
Well, I was like all right, I'mgoing to suck it up and take it
(35:01):
.
And it was one of the easiestclasses that I took at Smith.
For me because it happened tocome easily for me and because I
always had it in my head that Ididn't have great experiences
in high school and it wassomething I didn't like, I
didn't choose to engage with ituntil it was too late to do
anything with it.
But take that one course.
It was a real learningexperience.
(35:22):
That's something I clearlyshould have taken freshman year
because I could have avoidedtaking some classes that
involved a lot of memorizationthat I didn't do as well in,
whereas if you just want me tosit down and calculate stuff or
type up some code to helpcalculate some stuff, I can do
that.
So when it kind of goes to, youdon't know really what come
(35:43):
naturally to you until youreally delve into some of these
subjects and this is why I getfrustrated when people talk
about you know.
Okay, well, when you startcollege, you know the stakes are
really high, tuition is reallyhigh.
You need to set clear goals andstick with them.
I understand why that messagingis there, given how we fund
higher education in this countryand how deeply problematic it
(36:05):
can be.
The flip side is, until youreally get your hands dirty with
different types of classes thatreally push you in new ways and
get you really thinking aboutwell, how do you know what your
interests are and how do youknow what you're good at?
Until you do start doing thingsat a higher level and get
exposed to things at a higherlevel.
Joe Miller (36:28):
Right.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (36:28):
And the same is, then, true for when
you start in the work world,you know how you think about
making these transitions downthe road.
It's not about making adramatic shift from art history
to banking right.
It's about what are some ofthose subtler changes, those
transition changes that you cankind of kick the tires on.
(36:49):
Well, what is it about thisthat isn't working for me, and
what about that new thing thatcould be?
Joe Miller (36:56):
There's a lot there, and you reminded me of this
kind of the journey aspect ofthis whole topic and how it
isn't like one linear path fromstart to finish.
Well, let me just say that Ithink there's at least three
phases in my experience.
People go through, and they gothrough it multiple different
times and many times, and,rather than a line, maybe it's a
(37:23):
circle, and you start out withsome kind of a clarification
phase or a discovery phase of.
This is what I think I want todo.
Whether it's at the verybeginning you're in high school
or whatever you take your bestshot at it from all different
sources and then you go into anexecution process where you've
launched out, You're investingtime, energy, dollars and you're
(37:45):
going down that path and you gothrough this execution phase
for a good while.
Then you're starting to lookand say, okay, I'm getting sort
of into an intermediate skilllevel of what I'm doing, and
then you start moving into whatI call the mastery phase, where
you're starting to really getadvanced.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (38:06):
Right.
Joe Miller (38:07):
And that sort of.
Somewhere in that advancedperiod you're starting to say to
yourself what's next and so yougo around the loop back into I
want to clarify what I want todo next.
Or you know, this was all greatbut I want more.
I often talk to people who arekind of in the middle part.
You know they've reached somechallenges in the execution,
(38:30):
moving into mastery phase.
They're not seeing rewards,either intrinsically or from the
outside validation of whatthey've done or their
contribution, not feeling likethey're really flourishing.
Now they're starting to just gointo sort of a discovery phase
again and people can go aroundthat period.
But you're not a failure and welaugh.
(38:58):
But sometimes people feel likeeven having a thought of
changing a direction is like theworst possible thing.
Then I must have made a mistake,right.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (39:08):
Yeah, I'm actually teaching a course
next year called Success andFailure, and one of the
takeaways that I hope studentstake is you know something that
is a small scale failure youdon't do well in a course or you
realize that you've always saidyou were going to be a doctor
and now you're realizing that'snot a path you want to take or
(39:30):
should take or can't takebecause you failed organic M or
whatever.
This doesn't mean youpersonally are a failure, can't
take because you failed organicM or whatever.
This doesn't mean youpersonally are a failure.
Life is just these ebb and flowsof things that are going to go
your way and things that are not.
And it's your ability to beresilient and it's your ability
to unpack, okay, what happenedhere and what is under my
(39:50):
control it was that agency pieceand what is not and how can I
navigate my way through it.
You know these are life skills,right, that everybody has to
learn, and I think that ifyou've been sort of successfully
on a path of least resistanceand what I mean by that is
there's been no kind of externalforce that's pushed you off of
(40:12):
that then it may be, you know,you might be doing this at 45
instead of 25.
And you know I like to sayyou're going to have to do the
work sometimes and you know, abig part of the reason I went
back to working withundergraduates is to try to
let's nip it in the bud now.
If you can force students to doit before they do, they're less
likely to wake up when theyhave a mortgage and two kids in
(40:34):
college with a realization thatthey're feeling stuck and
unhappy.
But that also it goes to thehabits of mind, because what
you're identifying as well ispeople can be happy and
fulfilled for a certain periodof time and then realize that
they're not right Becausethey're bored.
They've been doing the samething for a while and needing to
kind of hit the restart buttonin new ways.
(40:55):
But I think if you, early on orat some point along the line,
have developed those habits ofmind to be constantly taking
your own temperature, when youget to that point where you're
starting to get bored and you'restarting to think this isn't
really working for me anymore,you have those tools at your
disposal to be really thinkingthrough.
(41:16):
Okay, well, if I want to thinkabout other options, what might
those be?
Who do I need to talk to to getmore information?
What is realistic given mycurrent family situation,
financial situation,particularly if you're looking
at doing this at midlife andyou're able to kind of weather
that storm more easily, you'vepoured a stronger foundation.
(41:40):
So when the hurricane hits thewhole house isn't going away.
Joe Miller (41:43):
Built on the rock.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (41:43):
I grew up on an island, so I use the
hurricane analogy For those whohave gone along with that path
of least resistance.
Well, both my parents weredoctors so I became a doctor and
it was fine.
I didn't have problems withorganic chemistry and I got
through medical school and I wasfine seeing my patients.
But now I'm incredibly bored.
(42:05):
I'm going through the motions.
I think my patients arestarting to see that.
But now I have a successfulpractice and I hate getting up
in the morning but I don't knowwhat to do.
Joe Miller (42:14):
That's hard keep getting up in the morning but I
don't know what to do.
That's hard and, as we talkedabout early on, things change in
the external world and what itused to be like to be a doctor
and what the healthcare the wayit is these days.
I probably have five or sixdoctors that I know who have
left conventional medicinebecause it is a rat race,
(42:38):
Absolutely, and you have toshrink the amount of time you
spend with your patients.
All those things we all knowabout.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (42:44):
Well, and the debt that you know if
we're working with now that arelooking at medical school.
You know the level of debt thatyou're coming out with.
Medical school is reallyextreme and I think you know
this is where I talk to studentsa lot about when they're
focusing on these kind ofhistorically prestigious careers
and unpacking where thatinterest is coming from.
(43:05):
And, to be clear with somestudents, it is actually very
well thought out and they knowexactly why they want to do it
and they've shadowed people inthe specialties that they're
interested in, in both law andmedicine or engineering or what
have you, and it is awell-thought out decision.
I'm not saying this isuniversal.
I'm not trying to badmouth theprofession, sure, but what I do
find interesting is sometimesit's the student whose parents
are like well, both my parentsare doctors.
(43:27):
They're telling me not to be adoctor, they're telling me not
to be a lawyer because they'veseen what these changes are,
because they've seen what thesechanges are right Influence
that's coming into that decision.
It's based on outdatedinformation.
I was actually having thisconversation relatively recently
with a student who wasinterested in coming in saying I
want to go to law school.
So we started talking aboutthat and what came out was that
(43:51):
a parent had felt reallystrongly that this was a good,
solid, stable profession whereshe could make money and support
herself without having to relyon a spouse down the road, and
that was a core value for thatparent.
And I said I understand thatI'm a parent.
I completely appreciate that.
Let me explain why law isprobably not the best way to
accomplish that.
(44:12):
You know the average law schooldebt is six figures.
You know the average salary fora lawyer is not.
If you really start unpackingall of the data, I said no.
If you decide that you know youdo all of the work in terms of
figuring out exactly what thisis, what's the path forward.
You know the courses thatyou're going to want to take to
(44:34):
get some exposure.
You're going to talk to someattorneys, you're going to work
as a paralegal or in some otherrole right after graduation and
you decide this is what you wantto do.
Yes, our institution has areally strong history of getting
students into top law schoolswho then make really good
salaries, but let's make surethat's really what you want
first, because this is a veryunstable profession in a way
(44:55):
that it was not.
Joe Miller (45:00):
Well, maybe your parents were coming up, yeah,
and we picked a couple differentcareers that are very well
known.
I often advise people to, ifthey have a thought that they
might want to make a change,that they line up informational
interviews at least as an earlystart, to have a conversation,
to check their assumptions onwhat things are like and
establish relationships as welland the network.
(45:23):
But it gets back to that agencyand back to that taking things
really seriously andintentionally and really working
at getting that clarity.
That's a key piece.
Really working at getting thatclarity, that's a key piece.
Well, so I think we've talkedabout a number of different
(45:43):
things, but if you were to kindof summarize and I know this can
be difficult because there's somany different factors of some
key lessons learned, some keyconcepts that you would want to
sort of highlight, what wouldthose items be key?
Sharon Belden Castongu (45:57):
concepts that you would want to sort of
highlight.
What would those items be?
Well, just to recognize thatthis is a skill learning the
habits of mind that you need tohave to be able to navigate a
turbulent job market, regardlessof your chosen profession or
industry, of your chosenprofession or industry that is a
(46:20):
skill in of itself.
So, in other words, justchoosing something and trying to
follow it along as a careerpath isn't enough anymore.
It's really important to learnhow to be thinking about.
What is my exit strategy?
What is my plan B?
What might be the next thingI'm going to want to do?
Am I taking my temperature onhow this is working for me?
Am I also taking thetemperature on my industry so I
(46:42):
can think about?
Am I likely to get laid off inthe next six months?
These are all habits of mind,both intrinsic and extrinsic,
that I think are reallyimportant to navigate and manage
one's career, regardless ofwhat that profession or industry
is.
So that is what I hope would be.
A big takeaway from this isthat this is something else
(47:04):
that's important for not onlyfor students, yes, but for
everybody to learn and that canbe learned.
Joe Miller (47:12):
And where do people go to folks like you?
I mean, you're not available tothe entire country or world,
but money off of it.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (47:18):
We put it out there under the Wesleyan
name.
It's a massive, open onlinecourse so anybody can take it
all over the world, and it'sreally designed not as a writing
(47:43):
a resume or going on a jobinterview it's not practical in
that sense, but it's a deeperdive into helping people figure
out.
You know, who am I?
What do I want out of life,what is working for me, what is
not?
How can I unpack all of thoseinfluences that are affecting my
decision-making?
I think of it as kind of aflipped classroom on an advising
process, so if you go throughall of the exercises in the
(48:05):
course, you may find that youknow what I think I got this.
I don't necessarily need to sitdown with a professional
counselor to work these thingsout.
If you happen to be in theStates and have attended college
here, though, and you'relooking for the one-on-one, I do
encourage people to go back totheir alma maters, because you
might be pleasantly surprisedthat a lot of universities do
(48:27):
offer either discounted or freesessions through their career
centers or through outsideproviders that they've
contracted with to provide lowercost career advising for alumni
.
Joe Miller (48:40):
That's great.
Well, I have to say this hasbeen a real pleasure and I
wanted to thank you for comingon my podcast YouTube channel.
For those listening or watching, I will put information in the
show notes that Sharon referredto for this online course,
information in the show notesthat Sharon referred to for this
(49:01):
online course, and I willencourage you to go to her talks
on TEDx and check them out.
It was really really goodmaterial and, I think, very
inspiring in many ways.
So thanks again, sharon, forbeing on the show.
Sharon Belden Castonguay (49:11):
Thank you very much for having me.
Joe Miller (49:13):
Okay, hey, thanks for joining me today on Titans
of Transition.
I hope you enjoyed the episode.
Please check the show notes foradditional information.
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