May 30, 2022 • 28 mins
Over 50 million people have quit their jobs since January 2021, but the latest data from The Muse says The Great Resignation has turned into The Great Regret. In fact, 72% of job changes are experiencing what is known as "shift shock." Meaning the grass wasn't greener at a new opportunity and are regretting their decision to leave their former employer.
Where did it all go wrong?
In this episode, Dan is bringing the receipts! He's sharing the three career pivot pitfalls that will keep you stuck and course correct. You'll also get the three must have ingredients you need to do your reinvention right.
Get Dan's three steps to reinvent your corporate career at any age for FREE at https://amplify.danmasoncoaching.com/reinventionguide
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Over fifty million people have quit their jobs since January one,
but the latest data from the MUSE says the Great
Resignation has turned into the Great Regret. In fact, seventy
of job changers are experiencing what is known as shift shock,
meaning the grass wasn't greener and a new opportunity and
(00:21):
they're regretting their decision to leave their former employer. Where
did it all go wrong? Coming up this week on
Life Amplified, I've got the data, I'm bringing the receipts.
I'm going to share the three career pivot pitfalls that
will keep you stuck, and we're gonna help your course correctly.
We're going to give you the three must have ingredients
(00:42):
you need to do your reinvention rights. Thank you so
much for being here. What is an amplified life. It's
having amplified relationships with people who support and encourage you
to be your best. It's having amplified energy to conquer
the challenges of the day. And it's having an amplified career,
(01:02):
one that's meaningful to you, the world, and your bank accounts.
I'm Dan Mason helping you discover your calling and create
an amplified life. On your terms. This is the Life
Amplified podcast. So I just want to say off the top,
I have so much empathy for this topic today, about
(01:25):
the search and and like going into your job search
with the best of intentions and thinking that you are
going to be so much happier when you get the
next job, when you get a pay raise, when you
get a more prestigious opportunity, but ultimately getting all those
things and realizing it's not the thing that you wanted.
That was really my journey between about August of in October.
(01:52):
I was at three different jobs over that three years,
and at that point in my life I was living
There's this idea that I talked a lot about in
my coaching practice that keeps people always searching for happiness
in their career but never really finding it. I call
it a little more, a little better, a little bigger
in us so often like I was just you know,
(02:12):
in twelve, I was pretty much at the pinnacle of
my radio career. I was overseeing two successful radio stations
in Sacramento, California. They were both highly rated. I was
the golden child at the company. It was a mid
level company, so I was really valued as an employee.
Every year they would send me another plaque for the
President's Club award, which was a big deal for them.
(02:35):
And you know, you, if you've ever read about job burnout,
one of the big one of the big red flags
for people who are burnout in your job is that
you become cynical, which I really had at that point
in my life. I couldn't grow anymore. I didn't feel unchallenged.
So every year they would send me another President's Club
plaque with a nice note from the president of the company,
(02:56):
and I quit putting them up in my office. I
would like take them home and use them as cheese plates,
like parties that my exit I would throw. I just
my heart wasn't in it anymore. And when my divorce happened,
I knew that it was time to go go out
there into the into the big world and make my
mark and find myself a better opportunity. And I did that.
(03:19):
I got a job in Boston, a top ten radio market.
It was working for CBS Radio, which at that point
was this legendary company. And the press release went out
and it looked made me look really important on social media.
But what I didn't consider is I was moving into
a bigger opportunity at a more prestigious company. Is yes,
(03:41):
the pay would increase and the president, you know, the
quote unquote prestige of the opportunity would increase. But you
know what, so were the politics. And then I got
into CBS Radio, and it wasn't just that we were
competing against all the competitive radio stations in the market.
I felt myself having to defend my self and having
to compete internally with some of my colleagues in the building.
(04:04):
There were a lot of arrows pointed in my direction
and a lot of people grabbing for power all at
the same time. And you know, I aggressively played that
game for a little while until I just was over it,
Like it just wasn't fun anymore. So my dream job
that I thought it was getting turned into a nightmare
after about three or four months. So what did I do.
(04:25):
I finished up my contract. I put in, like, you know,
my two years of that company, and I went back
to the same mentality we've talked about, a little more,
a little better, a little bigger. I got a job
managing three radio stations and I went to Tampa, Florida,
and this was a smaller boutique company. So I thought
the politics would be less, it would be a great opportunity.
(04:46):
And you know, this is probably the one time in
my career where I had an epic example of not
following my gut or trusting my intuition. You know, sometimes
when you listen to the people who were like really
woo woo and spiritual, they will tell you about the
experience where like spirit or God or the universe like
spoke to them in that moment. And this would be
the only experience I ever had in my life where
(05:08):
this happened. But I was going in for that job
interview in Tampa, and I was on the elevator going
up for the interview, in some voice not of my own,
literally said do not take this job. And I was
so off kilter I literally had to hold onto the
railing of the elevator. But also at the same point,
(05:30):
I would have the stars in my eyes. I thought,
if I was managing three radio stations and became an
operations manager and I got that paycheck that came with it,
that was gonna be the thing that made me happy. Right.
So I got seduced, and I think the boss that
I ended up going to work for I knew that,
you know, my ego was very susceptible to being stroked
(05:50):
and told how wonderful I am. And they did all
the things to make me feel wonderful in that job.
And sure enough, I've betrayed my intuition, got there to
this new job, and then quickly realized that I was
being totally micromanaged. I had no freedom. I felt like
a short order cook, just in there, kind of like
making the big mac every day. And I didn't really
(06:11):
have a lot of say in my career destiny. So
once again, a third job within three years, and I
was completely unfulfilled. And it's not even just the matter
of being unfulfilled. When you are constantly in the job
search and constantly chasing for this next big thing outside
of yourself to make you happy. It's exhausting because every job,
(06:33):
you know, every new job required a move to a
new city, which required packing up a house and moving
across country, moving my dog, saying goodbye to friends, getting
acclimated into a new environment, getting acclimated into a brand
new company, and trying to learn the politics that were
associated with it. It is an exhausting way to live. Secondly,
(06:57):
when you are constantly that person. And this is what
we're seeing in the Great Resignation right now, with so
many people having regret sort of jumping at new opportunities
without considering what's important to them. It created a lot
of self criticism and self judgment for me because man,
I thought I was an ungrateful jerk. I am, like,
what is wrong with me that I don't appreciate the
(07:19):
good fortune that I've been given? Right? Like, am I
just ungrateful for everything that falls into my lap? And
then third, the big problem when you're in the cycle
of constantly chasing a new job is I started to
lose self trust. I didn't even trust myself to make
the right decision anymore because I kept chasing these things
(07:40):
that I were told should be important to me in
my career, and then I would get all those things
and literally just want to slam my head into a wall.
So when they when I wasn't happy, yes, of course
I wanted to change again, but I didn't even trust
myself to make the right decision. So in hindsight, and
I think that this is what we're experiencing right now
(08:01):
in the Great Resignation for so many people who are
changing jobs and then having buyer's remorse on the back end.
Here were the problems that were happening internally with me,
and this is really when you drill down into the
data of why people are unhappy. This is what's going on.
Number One, I didn't know who I was away from
my job, so I was never going to be able
(08:23):
to reinvent beyond the existing career that I knew. I
was constantly going to be trying to climb up, you know,
the next rung of a ladder that was ultimately leaning
against the wrong wall because I didn't know who I
was aside from being Dan the radio guy. The second
thing that was really problematic, and this happens with so
(08:44):
many clients that I work with now, I didn't know
what I wanted for my life. You know, I knew
all these vague generalities, right well, I I want to
be happy. I want to have freedom. You know, freedom
is a big word that always comes up in my
coach programs, and ultimately, what I've realized in like seven
years of coaching people, a lot of times we don't
(09:05):
even know what that means to us. It's a great word,
but we don't actually know what freedom means to us.
And I didn't write, so it kept me searching, jumping
from job to job, but I was never happy to
any of them. And then number three, And this is
a big block and something you can reflect on in
your life if you've been sort of pursuing the corporate
(09:26):
ladder and in the rat race, but you're not fulfilled
by it. Because I had no sense of my own
values or my purpose. I just kept chasing money because
I thought that that would be the thing, right. I
was trying to fill this spiritual hold, this lack of purpose,
with more money, a nicer car, a nicer apartment, all
(09:48):
the things that that you can get when you are
in the corporate handcuffs, right, And you're is we sometimes
joke when you're s in that corporate d right, um,
But it doesn't work out, right and none of this
It didn't work out for me, and it's not working
out for people who are upset and have regrets over
(10:12):
their great resignation job change. Here's what the data says, though,
about the people who have changed jobs in the pandemic.
And I want to share this with you thirty six percent,
because it's totally ties into the idea of money. Said
that they chased money at a new opportunity without considering
what implications the new job would have on their life.
(10:34):
You know, every time I got like a bigger title
and got more money, the other reward that came with it,
uh was more responsibility, more stress, more hours, Uh, more
time away from the activities that sort of enreached my life,
the hobbies, the exercise, the time with people. And that's
(10:57):
where a lot of people are right now, is they
went and took a new job and they didn't realize
that now that job, in the bigger paycheck is actually
keeping them away from their family, that they're not able
to be as present as they want with their children.
And there's a lot of buyer's remorse. But this is
what happens when you aren't really clear internally on what
your own values are. Of Unhappy job changers said they
(11:23):
didn't even know what they wanted out of a new job,
so they didn't ask the right questions in the interview process.
You know, and a lot of times, particularly for those
of you who are looking at recruiters to help you
find a new job, the recruiters, yes, they're there to
kind of help place you, but they're ultimately working for
the companies that they're placing people for, so of course
(11:47):
they're going to upsell these opportunities and make it seem
as attractive as they can. And in some if it's
an outsourced recruitment firm, they don't even know some of
the politics or the bs that's going on at the company,
so they're just trying to move you up the ladder
on this predetermined path that recruiters operate by. But if
(12:09):
you don't know what you want out of the opportunity,
you're not going to ask the right questions. I have
a client in one of my group coaching programs. She
had been out of the workforce for about a year
and because she had so much trauma of like ending
up in some really toxic companies where it was abusive
culture where people she just wasn't really treated well. Uh.
(12:29):
And the problem was is she was going into the
interview process she didn't even know what she really valued
for the next employer. So as we went through the
process of helping her gain clarity on what her non
negotiables were, she found a job in like three weeks
after a year of unemployment. She had three departments at
the company fighting over her and now she's like in demand,
(12:50):
living her best life working for the new company. But
you have to know what is important to you, uh,
so that you can ask the right questions. Here there
is a big red flag for the people who have
changed jobs. Here is a huge one and this is
particularly big for gen Z job hoppers and why they've
(13:10):
been so disappointed with their great resignation and have regrets
about leaving their former employer. Of people say that they're
disappointed to realize that the new job that they went
to did not give them a sense of purpose. Ah. Man,
that's really outsourcing your power when you believe it's an
(13:32):
employer's responsibility to give you purpose. And that's going to
help me sort of shift this conversation. So if we
look at the three things that have kept people really
unhappy with their new job and the great resignation, Right,
they chase money without considering the implications of the hours,
of the lifestyle of that job on their family. Number two,
(13:55):
they didn't know what they wanted out of the career,
so they didn't ask the right questions. Number Three, they
feel like they didn't get a sense of purpose from
the new employer. So what do people want now that
they've had this experience of like, you know, switching jobs
and not being the thing that they wanted. It's the
three things we talked about on this podcast all the time, right,
(14:15):
people want money, they want meaning and their work, they
want to do something purposeful, and everybody wants freedom. But
the problem is is they're prioritizing those in the wrong order.
Because most of us don't know have an internal compass
to our purpose and we don't know what meaningful work
is for us, we tend to chase money because we
(14:36):
don't know what freedom really means to us, and we
get that confused, we just end up chasing money. Here's
a couple of mindset ships that I want to share
with you today. Is you think about doing your reinvention right.
I also just want to offer I've got an entire
to well page workbook that I have that you're going
to be able to download at the show notes in
(14:58):
this podcast. But it's resteps to reinvent your corporate career
without running out of money. Everybody wants money, but I'm
going to help you reprioritize here and build this process
from the inside out so that you have a career
that's deeply meaningful in your hearts, in your soul and
allows you to create the wealth that you want. But
(15:19):
here's the thing. It is not a corporation's responsibility to
give you purpose. And if you believe that your purpose
is to work for some big, you know, big corporation,
you're setting yourself up for a really dangerous time, especially
as we're stepping into some economic uncertainty and we know
(15:41):
that this is a time where there could be layoffs
because guess what, you could get laid off from that
job that you think is your purpose. And this is
why so many people end up lost. There was a
story back in two thousand and eight, during you know,
the housing crash when everything went backwards, about a company
in France as ALcom Company, where I think it was
(16:01):
like over two dozen employees committed suicide because they were
laid off from their company during that time. And it
happened here in the U S. You had guys that
Lehman Brothers throwing themselves out of you know, forty story
windows in Manhattan because they believed that their purpose was
to be, you know, to be a Wall Street broker
bro for Lehman brothers, and then it was taken away
(16:23):
from them. A company cannot give you purpose. Nothing outside
of you can give you purpose. Your kids cannot ultimately
be your purpose, your marriage cannot be can give you purpose.
None of those things. Because your purpose can't be external
to you. Anything external can be taken away. Purpose is
(16:44):
what you generate internally. Purpose is what you know in
your heart you're here to do, and then you find
a job that aligns with it. And this is where
a lot of people are like, oh my god, Dan's
trying to push me into entrepreneurship. No, this isn't. I mean,
there are I would say about the third of my
clients who come to me decide they want to go
(17:04):
to work for themselves and be their own boss. But
there are many people who just want to get the
clarity on what their purpose is and then go find
a corporate job that aligns with their values. Right, So
that's a big shift for you. Purpose is generated and
it exists at the intersection of about three places. It's
what do I love? What are the things that I'm
(17:26):
doing that light me up? Where time flies by like
four hours goes by and feels like ten minutes. What
am I good at What are the things that I
am just really really good at. So you know, you
can think of what do I love is? What are
my gifts? You can think of what am I good
at is my skills? And when you can merge those
two with the third one, which is what does the
(17:49):
world need, you could also consider what are the problems
that I know that I can solve for other people?
You know, the big turning point in my career reinvention
was sitting an HR meeting at my final job in
Tampa and they were presenting the Gallop Study, the state
of the workforce thing that they do every two years,
And when I saw the stats on the screen that
(18:10):
two and three employees were disengaged at their job, the
lightbulb went off for me. I was like, oh my god,
this isn't just me. I'm not alone. I'm not an
ungrateful dick because I hate where I am. Most people
are unhappy, and if I can figure out this out
for myself, certainly I can create a path for other
people to do the same. Right. That was a big
(18:30):
lightbulb moment in what ultimately steered me into a coaching practice,
which if you had told me at the beginning of
my reinventioned journey, i'd be doing this work for a living.
It wouldn't have had I would have told you that
you're insane, right, I would have burned you at the
stake for witchcraft. So, uh that's the big mindset shift
number one, right, meaning over money and when you know
(18:52):
what problems that you can solve for other people and
what your sweet spot is. And here's the thing, most
of the answer to that question might be invisible for
you because your gifts come so easily to you. You
lose sight of the fact that it's actually very difficult
for other people. So you actually denigrate your gifts, those
(19:13):
things that make you really special. You're like, oh my god,
anybody could do it, But the truth is no, they
freaking can't. It's called a gift for a reason. Right.
So that's uh. So that's a big mindset shift for you. Right.
Most people are placing money first. But if you prioritize
the meaning, if you know what you're here to do,
(19:34):
if you can solve problems for people, you'll be paid
abundantly for that. And you can do that in the
private sector working for corporate you can do it as
a side hustle, you can do it by taking an
entrepreneurial path. You know, when I talk about a life amplified,
it's life when I'm working with clients, it's life on
your terms, not mine. The world doesn't need another Dan Mason,
(19:56):
you know. The world needs what you have. It needs
the gift that you have. So that brings me to
the third uh need here when we look at where
all the dissatisfied job seekers are saying that what they
really want out of their career money, Meaning we've covered
freedom is the third. But freedom is again one of
(20:16):
those really fun personal development words, and most people don't
know what it means to them. You know, this is
why so many people start a side hustle, they start
an entrepreneurship and it goes sideways because they think the
freedom is just that, you know, the freedom to do
what they want all day, and they confuse freedom with
(20:36):
like having no structure or discipline. So now they've watched
like all three seasons of succession and they feel really
great about it, but they're not taking these steps forward
to manage their life or do the things that are
going to advance their career that will generate income. Right,
So if you think freedom in your life means no responsibility.
I mean, certainly you could do that. You could go
(20:58):
live the life of a hobo, I suppose, but you're
probably not going to be very fulfilled by that. The
other thing with when we look at freedom, what most
people really mean and what they really desire when they
say that they want freedom, is they want to be
in a job where they can authentically be themselves, where
(21:19):
they don't feel like they have to be a corporate sellout,
where they don't have to act out of integrity with
their own values. And that was a big one for me.
I realized, you know, the further I climbed up the ladder,
the more like I had built this caricature and being
like this really outrageous guy like on the radio, But
that wasn't really who I was. I never in my
(21:42):
corporate career felt like I could share my empathy, my heart.
And at that final corporate job, when I'm negotiating contracts
for new employees, where my directive was to undercut them
by like forty percent, uh and low ball them because
they should just be excited for the opportunity to work
for us, that felt really gross and out of integrity
(22:02):
for me, so like I didn't even want to walk
into the office every day, right, I was like having
to go in there and be somebody that I wasn't.
I had to take orders. I couldn't express my creative vision.
I couldn't I couldn't argue on behalf of the things
that I believed were important for us to win in
that company. So that when we're talking about freedom, it's
(22:23):
all about the authenticity to be yourself. You know, when
you look at the data that's out there, I think
it's something close to Employees feel like they have to
hide parts of themselves to get ahead in their career.
People are hiding sexual orientation, they're hiding their political beliefs,
they're hiding their relationship status. There are so many women
(22:45):
who were thriving in corporate who don't feel like they
can talk about their kids or their family because if
they're too focused on their family, they believe I'm not
saying that this is the case, but it probably is.
Right where they smoked their fire, they believe that they're
perceived as being too family focused. It's going to prevent
their opportunity to advance up the ladder. That's a shitty
(23:08):
way to live every day at work when you have
to hide who you are, when you can't be yourself,
so you know, and if that resonates for you, here's
the interesting thing. Money you can go chase that. You
can get that in corporate all day long. Purpose you're
not going to get it from a company. You need
to figure out what that is for yourself. If you
(23:29):
also feel like you don't have the freedom to truly
express who you are in your career, that is actually
a trauma pattern that's usually related to high that's usually
related to childhood and family trauma, where you know what
happened if you were too expressive as a kid, If
you had too much joy, were you told that you
were too much? If you were sad? I mean this
(23:51):
was a big thing growing up with a mom who
struggled with her mental health. If I got sad, I
was told I was being a baby. If I got angry,
as I had repressed the sadness for so long, and
then I became an angry teenager, and then I got
hit for that, all right, so then I couldn't be angry,
so I'd go back to being sad. And I was
emasculated for it, and I got to a point in
(24:13):
my life where my coping device was just not to
feel anything right, just express what I think would get
me ahead or get me attention, but not authentically, not
authentically and genuinely express all the parts of who I was.
And if there's any part of you that you're carrying
some sort of belief like that, that, oh my god.
(24:34):
It people knew the real me, they wouldn't love me.
You can change jobs. You can go find another job tomorrow.
People who listen to my podcast, people in my community,
you are high achievers, you are crushing it. You were
doing all the things. But you know what, You're gonna
get into a new company and still fight the same
trauma pattern. Oh my god, I can't beat myself. I've
got to hide. So when it comes to these things
(24:55):
that really bring fulfillment in the career, meaning and freedom,
which we could also say purpose and authenticity might be
the way to look at it. Those are the things
that you've got to do the inner work on and
you need support in order to do it. Like it,
trust me to a big degree. This is what hampered
my business in the first eighteen months I left radio,
(25:17):
And I'm like you know, Dan Mason is ready for service,
and I'm going to help people. But I was also
terrified because I know so many people knew me when
I was a disaster in my twenties and thirties. They're
gonna be like, screw you. We knew you when you
were like passed out drunk at like at the nightclub,
like doing radio jobs when you were still on the radio.
So I would like get all these things going in
(25:40):
my business. I'd published work, get my work published on
the Huffington's Post, and I would hide it on my
Facebook business page that had like eighteen followers at the time.
So there was this pattern of hiding that was really
holding me back in my business. And that's the part
that you have to reconcile. Whether you're going to work
for another company or you're going to be of an entrepreneur,
(26:00):
you have to feel safe in your own body and
safe to truly be yourself, not the person that you
were conditioned to be to survive childhood, and certainly not
the person that you were conditioned to be to survive corporate.
So those are the three things for you, the three
biggest problems that screw up a career invention. You don't
(26:21):
know who you are away from your job. Therefore you
can't really reinvent outside of the existing career that you're in.
Number two, you don't know what you really want from
your life, so you end up chasing money and you
end up in jobs that violate your values. They take
time away from the people that you love. You're always working,
(26:43):
but you're lacking connection and intimacy in your life. Number three, Uh,
you don't have a set because you don't have a
sense of your own values or no your purpose. You
keep just chasing money. And the more you chase the
money and the more you make, it's harder to walk
away from the career. That's what the whole point of
the Golden Handcuffs is, how do we move beyond it? Right?
(27:04):
One of the three things everybody needs in their career.
You need purpose, you need freedom to be who you are,
and yes, you can have money with it. So I've
got a workbook to help get you started, just to
help you create a vision for your next chapter from
the inside out. You can go to the link here
(27:25):
in the show notes will post that for you. You
can download it for free. Be sure, by the way,
if it goes to you to check your spam and
promotions folder because sometimes those PDFs that's where they end up.
And you want to make sure to whitelist my emails
because you're gonna get some extra materials there. And if
you need some extra support. By the way, if you
(27:46):
need some extra support on your reinvention journey, I do
have some coaching spots open right now for one on
one coaching. You can go to my website for info
on that Creative Soul Coaching dot net. Thank you so much.
We're spending the time with me today. If the podcast
serves you, be sure to screenshot it, upload it to
the gram uh and tag me at c SC Dan Mason.
(28:09):
Let me know what your big breakthroughs and take away
it is worth. In the meantime, turn down the volume
on your negativity, turn up the volume on your purpose
so you can live life amplified. I'll talk to you soon.
Over fifty million people have quit their jobs since January one,
but the latest data from the MUSE says the Great
Resignation has turned into the Great Regret. In fact, seventy
of job changers are experiencing what is known as shift shock,
meaning the grass wasn't greener and a new opportunity and
(00:21):
they're regretting their decision to leave their former employer. Where
did it all go wrong? Coming up this week on
Life Amplified, I've got the data, I'm bringing the receipts.
I'm going to share the three career pivot pitfalls that
will keep you stuck, and we're gonna help your course correctly.
We're going to give you the three must have ingredients
(00:42):
you need to do your reinvention rights. Thank you so
much for being here. What is an amplified life. It's
having amplified relationships with people who support and encourage you
to be your best. It's having amplified energy to conquer
the challenges of the day. And it's having an amplified career,
(01:02):
one that's meaningful to you, the world, and your bank accounts.
I'm Dan Mason helping you discover your calling and create
an amplified life. On your terms. This is the Life
Amplified podcast. So I just want to say off the top,
I have so much empathy for this topic today, about
(01:25):
the search and and like going into your job search
with the best of intentions and thinking that you are
going to be so much happier when you get the
next job, when you get a pay raise, when you
get a more prestigious opportunity, but ultimately getting all those
things and realizing it's not the thing that you wanted.
That was really my journey between about August of in October.
(01:52):
I was at three different jobs over that three years,
and at that point in my life I was living
There's this idea that I talked a lot about in
my coaching practice that keeps people always searching for happiness
in their career but never really finding it. I call
it a little more, a little better, a little bigger
in us so often like I was just you know,
(02:12):
in twelve, I was pretty much at the pinnacle of
my radio career. I was overseeing two successful radio stations
in Sacramento, California. They were both highly rated. I was
the golden child at the company. It was a mid
level company, so I was really valued as an employee.
Every year they would send me another plaque for the
President's Club award, which was a big deal for them.
(02:35):
And you know, you, if you've ever read about job burnout,
one of the big one of the big red flags
for people who are burnout in your job is that
you become cynical, which I really had at that point
in my life. I couldn't grow anymore. I didn't feel unchallenged.
So every year they would send me another President's Club
plaque with a nice note from the president of the company,
(02:56):
and I quit putting them up in my office. I
would like take them home and use them as cheese plates,
like parties that my exit I would throw. I just
my heart wasn't in it anymore. And when my divorce happened,
I knew that it was time to go go out
there into the into the big world and make my
mark and find myself a better opportunity. And I did that.
(03:19):
I got a job in Boston, a top ten radio market.
It was working for CBS Radio, which at that point
was this legendary company. And the press release went out
and it looked made me look really important on social media.
But what I didn't consider is I was moving into
a bigger opportunity at a more prestigious company. Is yes,
(03:41):
the pay would increase and the president, you know, the
quote unquote prestige of the opportunity would increase. But you
know what, so were the politics. And then I got
into CBS Radio, and it wasn't just that we were
competing against all the competitive radio stations in the market.
I felt myself having to defend my self and having
to compete internally with some of my colleagues in the building.
(04:04):
There were a lot of arrows pointed in my direction
and a lot of people grabbing for power all at
the same time. And you know, I aggressively played that
game for a little while until I just was over it,
Like it just wasn't fun anymore. So my dream job
that I thought it was getting turned into a nightmare
after about three or four months. So what did I do.
(04:25):
I finished up my contract. I put in, like, you know,
my two years of that company, and I went back
to the same mentality we've talked about, a little more,
a little better, a little bigger. I got a job
managing three radio stations and I went to Tampa, Florida,
and this was a smaller boutique company. So I thought
the politics would be less, it would be a great opportunity.
(04:46):
And you know, this is probably the one time in
my career where I had an epic example of not
following my gut or trusting my intuition. You know, sometimes
when you listen to the people who were like really
woo woo and spiritual, they will tell you about the
experience where like spirit or God or the universe like
spoke to them in that moment. And this would be
the only experience I ever had in my life where
(05:08):
this happened. But I was going in for that job
interview in Tampa, and I was on the elevator going
up for the interview, in some voice not of my own,
literally said do not take this job. And I was
so off kilter I literally had to hold onto the
railing of the elevator. But also at the same point,
(05:30):
I would have the stars in my eyes. I thought,
if I was managing three radio stations and became an
operations manager and I got that paycheck that came with it,
that was gonna be the thing that made me happy. Right.
So I got seduced, and I think the boss that
I ended up going to work for I knew that,
you know, my ego was very susceptible to being stroked
(05:50):
and told how wonderful I am. And they did all
the things to make me feel wonderful in that job.
And sure enough, I've betrayed my intuition, got there to
this new job, and then quickly realized that I was
being totally micromanaged. I had no freedom. I felt like
a short order cook, just in there, kind of like
making the big mac every day. And I didn't really
(06:11):
have a lot of say in my career destiny. So
once again, a third job within three years, and I
was completely unfulfilled. And it's not even just the matter
of being unfulfilled. When you are constantly in the job
search and constantly chasing for this next big thing outside
of yourself to make you happy. It's exhausting because every job,
(06:33):
you know, every new job required a move to a
new city, which required packing up a house and moving
across country, moving my dog, saying goodbye to friends, getting
acclimated into a new environment, getting acclimated into a brand
new company, and trying to learn the politics that were
associated with it. It is an exhausting way to live. Secondly,
(06:57):
when you are constantly that person. And this is what
we're seeing in the Great Resignation right now, with so
many people having regret sort of jumping at new opportunities
without considering what's important to them. It created a lot
of self criticism and self judgment for me because man,
I thought I was an ungrateful jerk. I am, like,
what is wrong with me that I don't appreciate the
(07:19):
good fortune that I've been given? Right? Like, am I
just ungrateful for everything that falls into my lap? And
then third, the big problem when you're in the cycle
of constantly chasing a new job is I started to
lose self trust. I didn't even trust myself to make
the right decision anymore because I kept chasing these things
(07:40):
that I were told should be important to me in
my career, and then I would get all those things
and literally just want to slam my head into a wall.
So when they when I wasn't happy, yes, of course
I wanted to change again, but I didn't even trust
myself to make the right decision. So in hindsight, and
I think that this is what we're experiencing right now
(08:01):
in the Great Resignation for so many people who are
changing jobs and then having buyer's remorse on the back end.
Here were the problems that were happening internally with me,
and this is really when you drill down into the
data of why people are unhappy. This is what's going on.
Number One, I didn't know who I was away from
my job, so I was never going to be able
(08:23):
to reinvent beyond the existing career that I knew. I
was constantly going to be trying to climb up, you know,
the next rung of a ladder that was ultimately leaning
against the wrong wall because I didn't know who I
was aside from being Dan the radio guy. The second
thing that was really problematic, and this happens with so
(08:44):
many clients that I work with now, I didn't know
what I wanted for my life. You know, I knew
all these vague generalities, right well, I I want to
be happy. I want to have freedom. You know, freedom
is a big word that always comes up in my
coach programs, and ultimately, what I've realized in like seven
years of coaching people, a lot of times we don't
(09:05):
even know what that means to us. It's a great word,
but we don't actually know what freedom means to us.
And I didn't write, so it kept me searching, jumping
from job to job, but I was never happy to
any of them. And then number three, And this is
a big block and something you can reflect on in
your life if you've been sort of pursuing the corporate
(09:26):
ladder and in the rat race, but you're not fulfilled
by it. Because I had no sense of my own
values or my purpose. I just kept chasing money because
I thought that that would be the thing, right. I
was trying to fill this spiritual hold, this lack of purpose,
with more money, a nicer car, a nicer apartment, all
(09:48):
the things that that you can get when you are
in the corporate handcuffs, right, And you're is we sometimes
joke when you're s in that corporate d right, um,
But it doesn't work out, right and none of this
It didn't work out for me, and it's not working
out for people who are upset and have regrets over
(10:12):
their great resignation job change. Here's what the data says, though,
about the people who have changed jobs in the pandemic.
And I want to share this with you thirty six percent,
because it's totally ties into the idea of money. Said
that they chased money at a new opportunity without considering
what implications the new job would have on their life.
(10:34):
You know, every time I got like a bigger title
and got more money, the other reward that came with it,
uh was more responsibility, more stress, more hours, Uh, more
time away from the activities that sort of enreached my life,
the hobbies, the exercise, the time with people. And that's
(10:57):
where a lot of people are right now, is they
went and took a new job and they didn't realize
that now that job, in the bigger paycheck is actually
keeping them away from their family, that they're not able
to be as present as they want with their children.
And there's a lot of buyer's remorse. But this is
what happens when you aren't really clear internally on what
your own values are. Of Unhappy job changers said they
(11:23):
didn't even know what they wanted out of a new job,
so they didn't ask the right questions in the interview process.
You know, and a lot of times, particularly for those
of you who are looking at recruiters to help you
find a new job, the recruiters, yes, they're there to
kind of help place you, but they're ultimately working for
the companies that they're placing people for, so of course
(11:47):
they're going to upsell these opportunities and make it seem
as attractive as they can. And in some if it's
an outsourced recruitment firm, they don't even know some of
the politics or the bs that's going on at the company,
so they're just trying to move you up the ladder
on this predetermined path that recruiters operate by. But if
(12:09):
you don't know what you want out of the opportunity,
you're not going to ask the right questions. I have
a client in one of my group coaching programs. She
had been out of the workforce for about a year
and because she had so much trauma of like ending
up in some really toxic companies where it was abusive
culture where people she just wasn't really treated well. Uh.
(12:29):
And the problem was is she was going into the
interview process she didn't even know what she really valued
for the next employer. So as we went through the
process of helping her gain clarity on what her non
negotiables were, she found a job in like three weeks
after a year of unemployment. She had three departments at
the company fighting over her and now she's like in demand,
(12:50):
living her best life working for the new company. But
you have to know what is important to you, uh,
so that you can ask the right questions. Here there
is a big red flag for the people who have
changed jobs. Here is a huge one and this is
particularly big for gen Z job hoppers and why they've
(13:10):
been so disappointed with their great resignation and have regrets
about leaving their former employer. Of people say that they're
disappointed to realize that the new job that they went
to did not give them a sense of purpose. Ah. Man,
that's really outsourcing your power when you believe it's an
(13:32):
employer's responsibility to give you purpose. And that's going to
help me sort of shift this conversation. So if we
look at the three things that have kept people really
unhappy with their new job and the great resignation, Right,
they chase money without considering the implications of the hours,
of the lifestyle of that job on their family. Number two,
(13:55):
they didn't know what they wanted out of the career,
so they didn't ask the right questions. Number Three, they
feel like they didn't get a sense of purpose from
the new employer. So what do people want now that
they've had this experience of like, you know, switching jobs
and not being the thing that they wanted. It's the
three things we talked about on this podcast all the time, right,
(14:15):
people want money, they want meaning and their work, they
want to do something purposeful, and everybody wants freedom. But
the problem is is they're prioritizing those in the wrong order.
Because most of us don't know have an internal compass
to our purpose and we don't know what meaningful work
is for us, we tend to chase money because we
(14:36):
don't know what freedom really means to us, and we
get that confused, we just end up chasing money. Here's
a couple of mindset ships that I want to share
with you today. Is you think about doing your reinvention right.
I also just want to offer I've got an entire
to well page workbook that I have that you're going
to be able to download at the show notes in
(14:58):
this podcast. But it's resteps to reinvent your corporate career
without running out of money. Everybody wants money, but I'm
going to help you reprioritize here and build this process
from the inside out so that you have a career
that's deeply meaningful in your hearts, in your soul and
allows you to create the wealth that you want. But
(15:19):
here's the thing. It is not a corporation's responsibility to
give you purpose. And if you believe that your purpose
is to work for some big, you know, big corporation,
you're setting yourself up for a really dangerous time, especially
as we're stepping into some economic uncertainty and we know
(15:41):
that this is a time where there could be layoffs
because guess what, you could get laid off from that
job that you think is your purpose. And this is
why so many people end up lost. There was a
story back in two thousand and eight, during you know,
the housing crash when everything went backwards, about a company
in France as ALcom Company, where I think it was
(16:01):
like over two dozen employees committed suicide because they were
laid off from their company during that time. And it
happened here in the U S. You had guys that
Lehman Brothers throwing themselves out of you know, forty story
windows in Manhattan because they believed that their purpose was
to be, you know, to be a Wall Street broker
bro for Lehman brothers, and then it was taken away
(16:23):
from them. A company cannot give you purpose. Nothing outside
of you can give you purpose. Your kids cannot ultimately
be your purpose, your marriage cannot be can give you purpose.
None of those things. Because your purpose can't be external
to you. Anything external can be taken away. Purpose is
(16:44):
what you generate internally. Purpose is what you know in
your heart you're here to do, and then you find
a job that aligns with it. And this is where
a lot of people are like, oh my god, Dan's
trying to push me into entrepreneurship. No, this isn't. I mean,
there are I would say about the third of my
clients who come to me decide they want to go
(17:04):
to work for themselves and be their own boss. But
there are many people who just want to get the
clarity on what their purpose is and then go find
a corporate job that aligns with their values. Right, So
that's a big shift for you. Purpose is generated and
it exists at the intersection of about three places. It's
what do I love? What are the things that I'm
(17:26):
doing that light me up? Where time flies by like
four hours goes by and feels like ten minutes. What
am I good at What are the things that I
am just really really good at. So you know, you
can think of what do I love is? What are
my gifts? You can think of what am I good
at is my skills? And when you can merge those
two with the third one, which is what does the
(17:49):
world need, you could also consider what are the problems
that I know that I can solve for other people?
You know, the big turning point in my career reinvention
was sitting an HR meeting at my final job in
Tampa and they were presenting the Gallop Study, the state
of the workforce thing that they do every two years,
And when I saw the stats on the screen that
(18:10):
two and three employees were disengaged at their job, the
lightbulb went off for me. I was like, oh my god,
this isn't just me. I'm not alone. I'm not an
ungrateful dick because I hate where I am. Most people
are unhappy, and if I can figure out this out
for myself, certainly I can create a path for other
people to do the same. Right. That was a big
(18:30):
lightbulb moment in what ultimately steered me into a coaching practice,
which if you had told me at the beginning of
my reinventioned journey, i'd be doing this work for a living.
It wouldn't have had I would have told you that
you're insane, right, I would have burned you at the
stake for witchcraft. So, uh that's the big mindset shift
number one, right, meaning over money and when you know
(18:52):
what problems that you can solve for other people and
what your sweet spot is. And here's the thing, most
of the answer to that question might be invisible for
you because your gifts come so easily to you. You
lose sight of the fact that it's actually very difficult
for other people. So you actually denigrate your gifts, those
(19:13):
things that make you really special. You're like, oh my god,
anybody could do it, But the truth is no, they
freaking can't. It's called a gift for a reason. Right.
So that's uh. So that's a big mindset shift for you. Right.
Most people are placing money first. But if you prioritize
the meaning, if you know what you're here to do,
(19:34):
if you can solve problems for people, you'll be paid
abundantly for that. And you can do that in the
private sector working for corporate you can do it as
a side hustle, you can do it by taking an
entrepreneurial path. You know, when I talk about a life amplified,
it's life when I'm working with clients, it's life on
your terms, not mine. The world doesn't need another Dan Mason,
(19:56):
you know. The world needs what you have. It needs
the gift that you have. So that brings me to
the third uh need here when we look at where
all the dissatisfied job seekers are saying that what they
really want out of their career money, Meaning we've covered
freedom is the third. But freedom is again one of
(20:16):
those really fun personal development words, and most people don't
know what it means to them. You know, this is
why so many people start a side hustle, they start
an entrepreneurship and it goes sideways because they think the
freedom is just that, you know, the freedom to do
what they want all day, and they confuse freedom with
(20:36):
like having no structure or discipline. So now they've watched
like all three seasons of succession and they feel really
great about it, but they're not taking these steps forward
to manage their life or do the things that are
going to advance their career that will generate income. Right,
So if you think freedom in your life means no responsibility.
I mean, certainly you could do that. You could go
(20:58):
live the life of a hobo, I suppose, but you're
probably not going to be very fulfilled by that. The
other thing with when we look at freedom, what most
people really mean and what they really desire when they
say that they want freedom, is they want to be
in a job where they can authentically be themselves, where
(21:19):
they don't feel like they have to be a corporate sellout,
where they don't have to act out of integrity with
their own values. And that was a big one for me.
I realized, you know, the further I climbed up the ladder,
the more like I had built this caricature and being
like this really outrageous guy like on the radio, But
that wasn't really who I was. I never in my
(21:42):
corporate career felt like I could share my empathy, my heart.
And at that final corporate job, when I'm negotiating contracts
for new employees, where my directive was to undercut them
by like forty percent, uh and low ball them because
they should just be excited for the opportunity to work
for us, that felt really gross and out of integrity
(22:02):
for me, so like I didn't even want to walk
into the office every day, right, I was like having
to go in there and be somebody that I wasn't.
I had to take orders. I couldn't express my creative vision.
I couldn't I couldn't argue on behalf of the things
that I believed were important for us to win in
that company. So that when we're talking about freedom, it's
(22:23):
all about the authenticity to be yourself. You know, when
you look at the data that's out there, I think
it's something close to Employees feel like they have to
hide parts of themselves to get ahead in their career.
People are hiding sexual orientation, they're hiding their political beliefs,
they're hiding their relationship status. There are so many women
(22:45):
who were thriving in corporate who don't feel like they
can talk about their kids or their family because if
they're too focused on their family, they believe I'm not
saying that this is the case, but it probably is.
Right where they smoked their fire, they believe that they're
perceived as being too family focused. It's going to prevent
their opportunity to advance up the ladder. That's a shitty
(23:08):
way to live every day at work when you have
to hide who you are, when you can't be yourself,
so you know, and if that resonates for you, here's
the interesting thing. Money you can go chase that. You
can get that in corporate all day long. Purpose you're
not going to get it from a company. You need
to figure out what that is for yourself. If you
(23:29):
also feel like you don't have the freedom to truly
express who you are in your career, that is actually
a trauma pattern that's usually related to high that's usually
related to childhood and family trauma, where you know what
happened if you were too expressive as a kid, If
you had too much joy, were you told that you
were too much? If you were sad? I mean this
(23:51):
was a big thing growing up with a mom who
struggled with her mental health. If I got sad, I
was told I was being a baby. If I got angry,
as I had repressed the sadness for so long, and
then I became an angry teenager, and then I got
hit for that, all right, so then I couldn't be angry,
so I'd go back to being sad. And I was
emasculated for it, and I got to a point in
(24:13):
my life where my coping device was just not to
feel anything right, just express what I think would get
me ahead or get me attention, but not authentically, not
authentically and genuinely express all the parts of who I was.
And if there's any part of you that you're carrying
some sort of belief like that, that, oh my god.
(24:34):
It people knew the real me, they wouldn't love me.
You can change jobs. You can go find another job tomorrow.
People who listen to my podcast, people in my community,
you are high achievers, you are crushing it. You were
doing all the things. But you know what, You're gonna
get into a new company and still fight the same
trauma pattern. Oh my god, I can't beat myself. I've
got to hide. So when it comes to these things
(24:55):
that really bring fulfillment in the career, meaning and freedom,
which we could also say purpose and authenticity might be
the way to look at it. Those are the things
that you've got to do the inner work on and
you need support in order to do it. Like it,
trust me to a big degree. This is what hampered
my business in the first eighteen months I left radio,
(25:17):
And I'm like you know, Dan Mason is ready for service,
and I'm going to help people. But I was also
terrified because I know so many people knew me when
I was a disaster in my twenties and thirties. They're
gonna be like, screw you. We knew you when you
were like passed out drunk at like at the nightclub,
like doing radio jobs when you were still on the radio.
So I would like get all these things going in
(25:40):
my business. I'd published work, get my work published on
the Huffington's Post, and I would hide it on my
Facebook business page that had like eighteen followers at the time.
So there was this pattern of hiding that was really
holding me back in my business. And that's the part
that you have to reconcile. Whether you're going to work
for another company or you're going to be of an entrepreneur,
(26:00):
you have to feel safe in your own body and
safe to truly be yourself, not the person that you
were conditioned to be to survive childhood, and certainly not
the person that you were conditioned to be to survive corporate.
So those are the three things for you, the three
biggest problems that screw up a career invention. You don't
(26:21):
know who you are away from your job. Therefore you
can't really reinvent outside of the existing career that you're in.
Number two, you don't know what you really want from
your life, so you end up chasing money and you
end up in jobs that violate your values. They take
time away from the people that you love. You're always working,
(26:43):
but you're lacking connection and intimacy in your life. Number three, Uh,
you don't have a set because you don't have a
sense of your own values or no your purpose. You
keep just chasing money. And the more you chase the
money and the more you make, it's harder to walk
away from the career. That's what the whole point of
the Golden Handcuffs is, how do we move beyond it? Right?
(27:04):
One of the three things everybody needs in their career.
You need purpose, you need freedom to be who you are,
and yes, you can have money with it. So I've
got a workbook to help get you started, just to
help you create a vision for your next chapter from
the inside out. You can go to the link here
(27:25):
in the show notes will post that for you. You
can download it for free. Be sure, by the way,
if it goes to you to check your spam and
promotions folder because sometimes those PDFs that's where they end up.
And you want to make sure to whitelist my emails
because you're gonna get some extra materials there. And if
you need some extra support. By the way, if you
(27:46):
need some extra support on your reinvention journey, I do
have some coaching spots open right now for one on
one coaching. You can go to my website for info
on that Creative Soul Coaching dot net. Thank you so much.
We're spending the time with me today. If the podcast
serves you, be sure to screenshot it, upload it to
the gram uh and tag me at c SC Dan Mason.
(28:09):
Let me know what your big breakthroughs and take away
it is worth. In the meantime, turn down the volume
on your negativity, turn up the volume on your purpose
so you can live life amplified. I'll talk to you soon.
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